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Rick Snyder and several other defendants have been dismissed from a class- action lawsuit against the state related to Flint’s lead-contaminated water crisis, U.S. District Judge Judith E. Levy ruled Wednesday.
The lawsuit includes 13 claims brought by 12 people and three businesses against 27 defendants.
(Photo: The Detroit News, file) The state of Michigan is entitled to sovereign immunity, Levy wrote, and those filing the lawsuit did not prove that Snyder was aware of staff emails calling Flint River water “downright scary.” “Plaintiffs have alleged that other defendants involved in the top-level decisions surrounding the switch to the Flint River knew of and disregarded risks to the health and safety of Flint’s water users,” Levy wrote.
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In her decision Wednesday, Levy also dismissed claims related to state-created danger, civil rights violations, fraud, negligence and gross negligence.
But she acknowledged the toll the water contamination took on residents, who were “made to use contaminated water that leached lead and bacteria from old lines.” Levy noted the water crisis in Flint remains “unresolved” and is the subject of seven pending state and federal lawsuits.
Snyder and the state’s dismissal from the class action lawsuit comes about a week after the MDEQ expressed concern about the city of Flint failing to ask for reimbursement for service line replacements.
Flint officials didn’t resume service line replacements until May so reimbursement requests for 2018 are only a couple of months behind, said Newsome.
The city will continue using internal resource to process its reimbursement requests since training and organizing state employees to help with the process "would take time" that the city doesn’t have if it is to meet the state’s August deadline, Newsome said.