Date: March 29, 2010
Source: News Room
A federal judge is allowing lawsuits filed by residents seeking economic damages related to a spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) site in Kingston, TN that sent a billion gallons of sludge onto nearby land. However, U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Varlan dismissed those seeking punitive damages or seeking jury trials on the basis that the TVA is a quasi-governmental agency. TVA sought the dismissal of the lawsuits under the discretionary function doctrine, which shields federal agencies from lawsuits arising from policy decisions. The plaintiffs argued that Congress waived TVA's sovereign immunity in the TVA Act, which created the utility in 1933. Varlan drew the distinction between the initial policy decision to build the containment pond versus the possibly negligent operation and maintenance of the facility that may have led to one of the country's largest environmental disasters. To date, the TVA has spent $231 million cleaning up the spill which is expected to cost between $933 million and $1.2 billion to complete. TVA noted in its annual report that 14 lawsuits related to the spill have been filed in federal court.
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