NEW ORLEANS — A new federal civil rights lawsuit filed in May accuses the City of New Orleans and the Orleans Parish School Board of failing to pay millions of dollars in court-ordered judgments tied to the long-running Agriculture Street Landfill case, while continuing to take on newer financial obligations.
The lawsuit does not revisit the original case surrounding the landfill. Instead, plaintiffs argue they already won in court and are now challenging what they describe as unconstitutional payment practices. At the center of the complaint is the claim that the city is choosing to pay newer debts and settlements while leaving older court judgments unpaid, potentially violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The issue dates back decades. The Agriculture Street Landfill site in New Orleans East was once a municipal dump. In the 1970s and 1980s, homes, apartments, including Press Park, and Moton Elementary School were built on or near that land. In 1994, the Environmental Protection Agency designated the site a Superfund location, identifying it as heavily contaminated and in need of long-term cleanup…