NOLA Still in Trouble

In 2005, a group of white workers in the District Attorney's Office in New Orleans, LA, sued for racial districmination. They claimed that Eddie Jordan, the DA of Orleans Parish, was systematically replacing white workers with black workers. The workers won the case, and after two years, are still waiting to get paid the $3.5 million that they won.

This week, the federal judge said that the plaintiffs...now judgment creditors... were entitled to seize the assets of the District Attorney's office, including over $1 Million worth of vehicles and $2 Million worth of furniture. The valuation of assets owned by the DA's office is a little surprising,(at $30,000 per vehicle, the DA's office owns over 30 vehicles, and if there are 50 office spaces for DA employees, that's about $40,000 per cubicle) since the whole office was flooded in the Hurricane just a couple of short years ago.

What is not surprising is that a governmental entity is refusing to pay debts that a jury has said are owed. You may read about governmental entites paying huge amounts to civil rights plaintiffs, but I would venture that more than 90% of the time that payment is made, it is a payment made by an insurance company. When it comes to paying judgments out of real money, governmental entities are notorious deadbeats. Next time you hear a politician screaming about respect for the law, the "rule of law" or like phrases, you might want to ask how many court judgments against the government remain unpaid because the politician don't find that honoring that "rule of law" to be expedient.