Hysteria, Greed, and the Public Purse: The Litigation Impacting a Local Governmental Agency

This research is a case study of the litigation in progress by hundreds of St. Bernard Parish families against the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans and Browning Ferris Industries (BFI). The families are suing for personal and property damages sustained as a result of the poor operation and maintenance of the East Bank Sewerage Treatment Plant (EBSTP) and the Crescent Acres Landfill. The purpose of the study will be to examine the consequences, links, and process of interaction among three key units of analysis: the plaintiffs, their lawyers, and one of the major defendants in the litigation, the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans; and, three basic concepts related to each study group: the hysteria of the neighborhood, the greed of the lawyers, and the vulnerability of the public sector to litigation. I postulate that the plaintiffs' lawyers, originally retained to assist the neighborhood in their fight for closure of the landfill, became motivated by greed to expand the neighborhood fight and bring it to a more lucrative conclusion. By engaging their trust, the lawyers were able to organize the neighborhood and plant the seeds for mass psychogenic illness and neighborhood hysteria. The resulting litigation illustrates the vulnerability of the public sector to contrived litigation and the concomitant consequences to John Q. Citizen and the public purse. This research will contribute to our understanding of the concepts of greed and hysteria, will provide much needed insight on public service agency vulnerability, and will offer solutions to the problems encountered by public service agencies in providing legally mandated services.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Urban and Regional Studies

Year

2007

Author dc:creator

• Simno, Claire D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Wagner, Fritz
• Brooks, Jane
• Whelan, Robert

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1081

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.uno.edu:td-2062