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Handy hint:
If you live lower than water level, and if aforementioned water level lives next door to you, you're doing it wrong.
These people need to shut the up and get a job already.
NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina's victims have put a price tag on their suffering and it is staggering — including one plaintiff seeking the unlikely sum of $3 quadrillion.
A whopping $3,014,170,389,176,410 is the dollar figure so far sought from some of the largest claims filed against the federal government over damage from the failure of levees and flood walls following the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.
Of roughly 489,000 total claims, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it has received 247 for at least $1 billion apiece, including the one for $3 quadrillion.
"That's the mother of all high numbers," said Loren Scott, a Baton Rouge-based economist.
For the sake of perspective: A mere $1 quadrillion would dwarf the U.S. gross domestic product, which Scott said was $13.2 trillion in 2007. A stack of one quadrillion pennies would reach Saturn.
Some residents may have grossly exaggerated their claims to send a message to the corps, which has accepted blame for poorly designing the failed levees.
"I understand the anger," Scott said. "I also understand it's a negotiating tactic: Aim high and negotiate down."
Daniel Becnel, Jr., a lawyer who said his clients have filed more than 60,000 claims, said measuring Katrina's devastation in dollars and cents is a nearly impossible task.
"There's no way on earth you can figure it out," he said. "The trauma these people have undergone is unlike anything that has occurred in the history of our country."
The corps released zip codes, but no names, for the 247 claims of at least $1 billion. The list includes a $77 billion claim by the city of New Orleans. Fourteen involve a wrongful death claim. Fifteen were filed by businesses, including several insurance companies.
Little is known about the person who claimed $3 quadrillion. It was filed in Baker, 93 miles northwest of New Orleans. Baker is far from the epicenter of Katrina's destruction, but the city has a trailer park where hundreds of evacuees have lived since the storm.
Katrina, which is blamed for more than 1,600 deaths in Louisiana and Mississippi, is considered the most destructive storm to ever hit the U.S. It caused at least $60 billion in insured losses and could cost Gulf Coast states up to $125 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Most of the claims were filed before a deadline that coincided with Katrina's second anniversary, but the Corps is still receiving them — about 100 claims have arrived over the past three weeks — and is feeding them into a computer database.
The Corps said it isn't passing judgment on the merits of each claim. Federal courts are in charge of deciding if a claim is valid and how much compensation is warranted.
"It's important to the person who filed it, so we're taking every single claim seriously," Corps spokeswoman Amanda Jones said.
Handy hint:
If you live lower than water level, and if aforementioned water level lives next door to you, you're doing it wrong.
Last edited by 1369; 01-09-2008 at 02:04 PM. Reason: Dikes on lake or gulf?
Send all claims to
The Estate of Hurricane Katrina, deceased
Hopefully we win this case. If I take my usual cut, that 3 quadrillion dollar case oughta set me for life. Then I can retire and devote my days to the Bob Loblaw Law Blog.
3 quadrillion pays for a lot of 40oz's.
"Let's see what you wagered: Eleventy billion dollars. That's not even a real number."
"Yet."
lol
quadrillion
L O U I S I A N A
Seriously, we get more news about stupid people doing stupid things from that one state* than the other 49 combined.
*To be fair, most of that is just the Spears family.
This is ridiculous. Obviously the quadrillion claim is BS, but the rest of the billion claims are lazy ass people looking to get set for life. 1 billion?? I mean, come on!
God bless the tort system.
And some want to vote in Edwards. MAKE IT WORSE
I understand that some of these claims ask for outrageous sums of money. Fortunately, federal courts will be the ultimate arbiters of the claims. But with that said, is anyone really arguing that the government shouldn't be liable for some of the losses these people incurred, particularly where the Corps has admitted that its levees were inadequately designed and caused the destruction?
I'm not saying that a $1 billion claim is reasonable, but I also find it odd that some would apparently think that losses caused by the government's admitted negligence shouldn't be compensable.
I'd say that the people getting sued should be the local levee boards, who took the millions of dollars the federal government gave them for levee upkeep and spent the money on local good ol' boy projects, including *building a casino*.
But those are the cousins, uncles, and dads of those filing some of these suits, so can't have that. Blame the white man in D.C.
If that's true, then that's part of the government's defense to the claims. The government, however, hasn't argued that its funding was misspent -- it has, seemingly, accepted blame for the fact that the levees weren't properly built in the first instance. Maybe that's misguided on the part of the federal government, but it is, apparently, the posture of the claims.I'd say that the people getting sued should be the local levee boards, who took the millions of dollars the federal government gave them for levee upkeep and spent the money on local good ol' boy projects, including *building a casino*.
But those are the cousins, uncles, and dads of those filing some of these suits, so can't have that. Blame the white man in D.C.
If the failure to build proper levees to protect against the problems associated with hurricanes -- as the government acknowledges -- played a role in destroying these people's homes, don't these people have some right to be compensated for their injuries by that government?
Assumption of risk for living in a flood plain?
Damn, that would buy a lot of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits.
I wonder what Tpark. has to say about all this
You're about the only one.
You laugh now, but if this guy wins, won't you feel the dumb ?
I happen to think the Tpark. troll is actually pretty funny
I'm not so sure -- particularly if the government offered assurances to someone in the chain of le that its levees were properly constructed and would protect against this type of incident.
You pretty much lose an assumption of risk defense if you make promises that entice people to take that risk.
Get on the ball, FWD. This is your chance
Ten percent of one quadrillion dollars?
I was thinking of submitting a claim to FEMA for the flooding we had here. I'm not nearly as greedy as these guys though, I would probably settle for 2.5 quadrillion.
Is it me, or does this person look like Scott Baio?
Look up the tv show "Arrested Development"
It's a Scott Baio character.
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