No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

washelterskelte

Government officials allowing this to happen should be sentenced to acute lead poisoning.

helsinkiandrew

> alleged that the city knowingly allowed residents to drink unsafe water. Surely knowingly letting people drink lead contaminated water breaks other laws rather than their constitutional rights?

cocacola1

This seems to fall under the whole “promote the general welfare” part of the Preamble of the Constitution, though perhaps the court is unaware of it.

bix6

> Rather, he said residents should take other paths to redress, including electing better representatives and petitioning the government for remedies. Is suing the government not essentially a petition for remedies? How else do you get the gov to listen?

mathisfun123

People don't read enough court decisions. Did you know you don't have a constitutional right to be protected by the police either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzale... > the Court ruled, 7–2, that a town and its police department could not be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for refusing to enforce a restraining order, even though the refusal led to the murders of a woman's three children by her estranged husband

Avicebron

> He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.

ceejayoz

> In the majority decision, Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that while the deprivation of clean water was “grievous,” it did “not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.” “We are skeptical that the right to not be harmed by lead-contaminated water fits within the right to bodily integrity, and Plaintiffs point us to no historical tradition or Supreme Court precedent convincing us,” he wrote. The Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It's the Fifth Circuit, so I'm not shocked they haven't heard of it. I strongly suspect the Fifth Circuit would considered their bodily integrity to have been impinged upon if someone snuck lead into their drinks.

tzs

The court ruling is here [1]. While this article is way better than the one from yesterday, it does have some big problems. Better to just take a look at the ruling itself. Note that it contains two opinions. First is the majority opinion, joined be 10 judges on the 15 judge panel. Then is an opinion joined by 5 judges that dissents in part and concurs in part. [1] https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pd...

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This ruling seems obviously correct to me? The plaintiffs claimed this was a 14th amendment issue, but at the time the 14th was added cholera outbreaks were still somewhat common in the US and there was no remote notion of safe drinking water provided universally by municipal governments. Hopefully there is some other legal redress under a different law or EPA regulation, but the courts can't just give in to faulty reasoning like that because people were wronged by the government.

tamimio

US residents are only allowed to buy and drink brawndo (TM), for safe and clean consumption, they can even use it to irrigate the crops because it has electrolytes!!

tyjen

Constitutional right? No. But, it's an abject failure of the local government overseeing the infrastructure to fix or solicit help to fix. Jackson, MS government failed. Targeting them on the grounds of a constitutional violation seems like borderline legal malpractice, but probably an unfortunate standard time wasting legal protocol, for lawyers to suggest this was a viable route to begin with.

chermi

Yes? Why would there be? This is a nation built on negative rights. If you pay taxes/fees to some institution for a service and the the institution fails to provide it, that's already covered by some contract law, no? I know this will be read as me saying they shouldn't have clean water. What I'm saying is that declaring a positive right is not an effective approach to satisfying that right in this country, or anywhere that I'm aware. But especially this country. If I was in that jurisdiction I would be kind of insulted if this was presented as a reasonable approach to secure clean water.

jl6

At the risk of an analogy, this is like finding that the Linux kernel provides no guarantee that a process won’t contain buffer overflow vulnerabilities. While buffer overflows are bad, and it would be a good idea to try to prevent them, enforcing against them at the kernel level would be a far-reaching prospect with many consequences, intended and unintended. The judge is opining that other layers of protection are available.

dguest

It's interesting how a lot of newer countries just put the right to water directly in the constitution. South Africa says some stuff about the government having an obligation toward "progressive realization" of the goal [1], whereas Slovenia just straight says water is a right [2]. [1]: https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rig... [2]: https://www.uradni-list.si/glasilo-uradni-list-rs/vsebina/12...

light_hue_1

As usual a split decision along party lines. The entire US judicial system has lost its mind. It's clear at this point that judges pick the outcome they want then find ways to interpret the case, precedent, etc. to fit. You can see it in the dissent here. https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pd... Hard to see where we go from here as a society where arbitrary laws that bind us all are essentially written on the fly by whatever judges happen to be in the Supreme Court, circuit courts, state courts, etc. How is it possible to have a democracy under these conditions?

bryanrasmussen

well first off, nobody asked for a constitutional right to clean water, what the court said was that not providing clean water did not violate rights to bodily integrity under due process. Furthermore they said lying and saying the water was clean was fine because "there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.”" which is a stupid statement because everybody knows there is no such constitutional right, the question would be if not giving truthful information during a health crisis could violate some constitutional right. I would have dug to see if they told somebody with money and power, hey don't drink that water because then that would violate equal protections (or at least that's what I would argue), but since nobody went there maybe it's not quite as sure a proposition as I would suppose.

bradley13

Correct. You may demand clean water from your local government, in return for taxes, but it isn't any sort of basic right. And certainly is not mentioned in the US Constitution. Much like food or medical care: fundamental rights can never depend on the work of other people. Otherwise you can demand that work, which imposes on their rights.

Frieren

As a not American, why does freedom of speech include corporations giving money that are not citizens nor talking. But even that Congress has the power to spend "to provide for the common defence and general welfare" given by the constitution it still not a right to receive any of that. I have a feeling that there is a interpretation bias in favor of corporations over human life.

GarnetFloride

are you kidding me? It's right in the preamble "promote the general welfare" if clean water does not count, then neither should all the other BS they've argued into existence over that phrase should either.

ChrisArchitect

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49584637