FLINT, MI - A divided Michigan Supreme Court says state government departments, former Gov. Rick Snyder and former emergency managers he appointed to run the city of Flint must face a civil lawsuit related to their handling of the city’s water crisis.

In a ruling Wednesday, July 29, the court held that Flint residents and property owners “sufficiently alleged a claim,” denying a motion to dismiss the case made by attorneys for Snyder and other defendants.

Filed in January 2016, the lawsuit claims Snyder, emergency managers and departments of state government violated Flint residents’ “bodily integrity” by exposing them to lead-contaminated water and hiding what they knew about it. It also claims that homeowners suffered financial losses due to diminished property values for which they weren’t compensated.

“Viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs and accepting their factual allegations as true, the pleadings established that defendants’ actions were a substantial cause of the decline in plaintiffs’ property value, that defendants took affirmative actions directed at plaintiffs’ property, and that plaintiffs suffered a unique or special injury different in kind, not simply in degree, from the harm suffered by all persons similarly situated,” the opinion says.

https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2020/07/michigan-supreme-court-rules-former-gov-snyder-emergency-managers-must-face-flint-water-crisis-lawsuit.html