BATON ROUGE – A Tangipahoa Parish man has filed a class action against the state over flooding allegedly caused by the construction of an interstate highway in the parish.
Levi E. Robertson, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, filed a complaint on March 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana against State of Louisiana and the Department of Transportation and Development alleging that they violated the Fifth and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
According to the complaint, the defendants constructed a section of Interstate Highway 12 in Tangipahoa Parish across a flood plain. The suit states the construction caused flooding in 1983 and twice in 2016 that inundated the property of thousands in the parish.
The plaintiff holds the state of Louisiana and the Department of Transportation and Development responsible because the defendants allegedly failed to take reasonable care regarding the construction, use and control of the highway and wrongfully took said property without just compensation.
The plaintiff seeks compensatory damages, along with costs of this suit and all other relief that are just and proper. He is represented by Eric R. Nowak of Harrell & Nowak LLC in New Orleans and Byard Edwards Jr. in Hammond.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana Case number 3:17-cv-00138