just because “something happened” doesn’t mean somebody is always liable. in this case, if the pipe was sound and the city didn’t do anything negligent, then “s___ happens” and they shouldn’t be expected to cover the damages.
The article states that the City of Bozeman performed “Ordinary Care” which why they are not being held responsible. If their “Ordinary Care”, or lack thereof (i.e replacing pipes when necessary), allowed the pipe break to occur, They should be responsible to make people whole.
With so many levels of government allowing years of deferred maintenance to occur (ask the Minnesota Bridge Accident folks about this), the standard for Ordinary Care would be NO CARE..And they are protected statutorily on this basis?.That doesn’t make sense..
Mike,
Disagree w/you on this one. No city in the country could afford a “preventive maintenance” program to replace every piece of it’s infrastructure to avoid something like this. Taxpayers wouldn’t support it. Without active negligence the city has no liability.
Agree Ritchie. Not only that, but those who could and should have purchased flood insurance and didn’t just lost their bet for trying to save a couple of hundred bucks. I have no sympathy for people who could/should have protected themselves, but didn’t. And I don’t support giving them federal aid to cover their own stupidity and mistakes.
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just because “something happened” doesn’t mean somebody is always liable. in this case, if the pipe was sound and the city didn’t do anything negligent, then “s___ happens” and they shouldn’t be expected to cover the damages.
The article states that the City of Bozeman performed “Ordinary Care” which why they are not being held responsible. If their “Ordinary Care”, or lack thereof (i.e replacing pipes when necessary), allowed the pipe break to occur, They should be responsible to make people whole.
With so many levels of government allowing years of deferred maintenance to occur (ask the Minnesota Bridge Accident folks about this), the standard for Ordinary Care would be NO CARE..And they are protected statutorily on this basis?.That doesn’t make sense..
Mike,
Disagree w/you on this one. No city in the country could afford a “preventive maintenance” program to replace every piece of it’s infrastructure to avoid something like this. Taxpayers wouldn’t support it. Without active negligence the city has no liability.
Agree Ritchie. Not only that, but those who could and should have purchased flood insurance and didn’t just lost their bet for trying to save a couple of hundred bucks. I have no sympathy for people who could/should have protected themselves, but didn’t. And I don’t support giving them federal aid to cover their own stupidity and mistakes.