It Figures
$38 Million
A Minnesota House-Senate panel agreed on a $38 million compensation package for victims of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse. The lead negotiators were Sen. Ron Latz and Rep. Ryan Winkler. The total amount is closer to the House’s $40 million bill than the Senate’s $26.4 million version. The main disagreement was whether individual victims should get more than the state’s liability limit of $400,000. On the Senate side, Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, said it’s important not to open the state up to claims from victims of future incidents who can argue that the state went beyond its liability limits for the bridge victims. Speaking for the House negotiators, Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, said lawmakers can’t ignore the most severely injured survivors of last summer’s bridge failure. Some face medical bills and other losses that add up to more than $400,000. The bridge collapsed on Aug. 1, killing 13 people and injuring 145.
$735,000
City officials in Davenport, Iowa, say keeping the Mississippi River from causing extensive damage and cleaning up flooded areas has cost the city $735,000 so far. The figure includes overtime for city workers who scrambled to build an earthen dike, fill sandbags and operate pumps. It also includes materials and cleanup costs, City Administrator Craig Malin said May 9. He said the figure is just an estimate and all costs aren’t yet known. Malin toured Credit Island, where golf course fairways, basketball courts, baseball diamonds and tennis courts are under water. The $735,000 in city flood costs is considerably less than damage caused by the 2001 flood, which cost the city $1.7 million.
$400 Billion
The U.S. Supreme Court recently affirmed a ruling that apartheid victims who seek damages exceeding $400 billion from more than 50 major corporations can go forward with their lawsuits. With four justices rescued from the case and therefore lacking a quorum, the high court issued a brief order simply affirming a ruling by a U.S. appeals court in New York. The appeals court had reinstated the lawsuits by the plaintiffs, who claim the companies violated international law by assisting the apartheid system in South Africa. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito did not take part in the case, apparently because they own stock in some of the companies. Because they did not participate, the Supreme Court said it lacked a quorum, which requires at least six of its nine members. The affirming of the lower-court ruling allows the lawsuits to proceed, but does not represent a decision by the justices on the merits of the dispute. The corporations named in the lawsuit included oil companies such as BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp., banks such as Citigroup, Deutsche Bank AG and UBS AG, as well as other multinationals like IBM , General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co.