Input Sought: Legal Issues & Meteorology

[J Gontesky]

I am soon to be a second-year law student (with an undergrad meteorology degree) who will be working on Law Review this upcoming year. Among other tasks, one requirement is that I write a "publishable" article for the law review. While some of the law review tasks are relatively mundane (proofing/editing others' articles), I'm actually looking forward to writing my own. The article must be of publishable quality. Not all of them will be published, but a few will...and to get credit for being on law review, the quality of the final product must be up to snuff.

Herein lies the rub: I must come up with my own law review article topic. On one hand, that's pretty sweet, as I can explore lots of my own interests...while on the other hand, that is challenging, as the topic must be one of somewhat current interest while being an 'unsettled' area of the law. The topic must have at least some level of history - some case law, legislation, or statutes that govern some aspect of it, but it must not be entirely settled law - that is, it cannot be an area which has no unresolved questions.

I would very much like to tie together meteorology and the law with my article. To do so, I must find a topic/issue of legal relevance that has to do with meteorology. For instance, a professor recently wrote a pretty interesting and lengthy article recently about the ability of the government to regulate CO2 as a "pollutant" (as part of global warming legislation...). The ability for the government to regulate a pollutant has a long history that is rich with legislation, litigation, statutes, etc... Ditto on the definition of a "pollutant" and so on. Yet the unresolved question was whether or not the whole package could come together...and thus it made a good law review article topic.

I've already ordered a (used) copy of a book that I think may help me with some suggestions (Disasters And the Law: Katrina And Beyond). Katrina is a topic that has been pretty well hashed out in the legal community already, so Katrina-specific topics may not be the best. But there could certainly still be unsettled questions that relate to storms/situations like Katrina.


Topics I've been tossing around in my mind:
• Legal issues (liability, etc...) for large sports stadiums/venues in the event of severe storms / tornadoes.
(this may lack enough background though...no case law or statutes are really in place...but I haven't fully researched it yet)

• Liability for home builders for damage resulting from negligent construction
(Like the Rogers, MN case from earlier this year that Marshall worked on)

• Duty for city/municipality/government or private entities to clear roads of ice/snow in winter storms
(Issue may fail to be good for this project due to government immunity from legal action...also, may be well-settled law)

• Liability for NWS for missed warnings, etc...
(again, is likely relatively settled law - generally one cannot sue a government entity...as such, this may be a dead end in terms of this project)

• Legal issues for storm chasers
Any specific ideas related to this area? I know chaser tours have people sign liability waivers...so that's a bit of a settled issue. I know that there is animosity between law enforcement and chasers in some areas... but in terms of legal issues that would suffice for in-depth research, I'm not sure that is enough. In terms of specific, research-able issues related to this area, any ideas from you guys?

• Legal issues in criminal law related to the weather
How weather can impact availability of court services, how it can impact service of process on defendants, how weather records can be used as evidence...

• Using weather records as evidence
How weather records (or the lack thereof) can be used as evidence in civil or criminal court proceedings... this is a general question though that may not have any particular, interesting, unsettled questions that would justify a law review article.


The list looks like I'm hung up on just liability/tort issues, but I'm not purposefully narrowing myself to those...those are just the first ones that have come to mind today.

So... any interesting legal questions that you've come across in your years as meteorologists? Anything that you think would be an interesting area that has some history, yet is not settled and as such, would provide a good amount of background research, yet still pose questions that are relevant to today's culture?

I'm looking for some brainstorming, so any hints of issues are welcome, as my research is just beginning.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I've often wondered about the legal issues surrounding weather modification. For example, lets say that we get to a point in science and technology where we can initiate or modify storms. This could even apply to cloud seeding, I guess. Say a municipality A modifies an east-moving developing storm during a tornado watch and causes it to rain itself out early west of town, providing crop moisture for the farmers west of town and avoiding any risk of tornadogenesis. The death of this storm kicks up an OFB that lights up a storm to the south of town, which eventually goes tornadic and clobbers the neighboring municipality B. Is municipality A on the hook for the storm that clobbered B? What about the farmers just east of municipality A, who claim they were robbed of the rain that they would have had? Who has the burden of proof? etc. etc.

Completely hypothetical, since we may never get to the point of weather modification. But to bring it to something real, I imagine that studies will eventually show that large windmill farms modify local climatology -- all that energy comes from somewhere -- and when they do, will the locals be able to sue the owners of windmill farms if they can show that the farms are negatively impacting their interests?

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

you could always do one on the public reporting false damage and storm reports.

I dunno if that is exactly "settled" by law...but I know the FBI is investigating a couple of instances, and the links are over in the Storm Spotter Section.

just a suggestion.

 

[Bryan Stokes]

I've often wondered about the legal issues surrounding weather modification. For example, lets say that we get to a point in science and technology where we can initiate or modify storms. This could even apply to cloud seeding, I guess. Say a municipality A modifies an east-moving developing storm during a tornado watch and causes it to rain itself out early west of town, providing crop moisture for the farmers west of town and avoiding any risk of tornadogenesis. The death of this storm kicks up an OFB that lights up a storm to the south of town, which eventually goes tornadic and clobbers the neighboring municipality B. Is municipality A on the hook for the storm that clobbered B? What about the farmers just east of municipality A, who claim they were robbed of the rain that they would have had? Who has the burden of proof? etc. etc.

Interesting point. For the last 30 years, Vail has been cloud-seeding to draw more moisture (snow) out of the clouds. Some of the ski-resorts downrange of Vail claim that it robs some of the moisture that they would have received had Vail not cloud-seeded. It's been a hotly debated topic for years. I have no idea what, if any, legal ramifications have taken place...but Ryan brings up a good point. One cause has an effect and it will be interesting to see where this goes as more and more weather modification takes place in the years to come.

Bryan

 

[Greg Blumberg]

For the past 3 years I've been working with a forensic meteorologist named Mike Mogil. He often does depositions for law firms for cases involving meteorology. I know for a fact that he can provide you with lots of examples based on your questions and ideas.

His website:

http://www.weatherworks.com/

and more specifically:

http://www.weatherworks.com/services/legal/forenserv.html

I know you cannot reach him by the phone number posted on the contact portion of the website, as he is in MD running a weather camp right now, but definitely shoot him an email or something.

 

[Alex Fisher]

Hey,

I'm a 3L and I tried to write about meteorology and the law for my Law Review note without much luck. Unfortunately, there really is not that much that would justify an interesting and complete law review article. Furthermore, I found this book, and it basically pre-empted what I wanted to write about. http://www.amazon.com/When-Nature-S...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248136614&sr=8-1
So I ended writing up about Clean Water Act wetlands jurisdiction after the 2006 SCOTUS Rapanos decision.

Sorry I couldnt be of more help. Hopefully you can figure out a way to do it. Let me know if you do figure something out. I'd be interested to know what you did.

Best of Luck,

Alex

 

[Ric Burney]

• Legal issues for storm chasers
Any specific ideas related to this area? I know chaser tours have people sign liability waivers...so that's a bit of a settled issue. I know that there is animosity between law enforcement and chasers in some areas... but in terms of legal issues that would suffice for in-depth research, I'm not sure that is enough. In terms of specific, research-able issues related to this area, any ideas from you guys?

Okay, looking at legal issues in regards to storm chasing but from a different angle. This was a topic of discussion during our recent training net. Stopping to render aid to storm /disaster victims. Coverage under good samaritan laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law. Liability of rendering aid when such aid as given causes additional pain and suffering, injury or loss of life. Duty to stop and render aid under state(s) laws. Just food for thought.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

How about construction liabilty related to earthquake safety standards?
Case law info is ???
But there are more new laws in states that are more prone to earthquakes, and those laws are still evolving.
May be room for newer analysis of the issues.

 

[Robert Dewey]

I've often wondered about the legal issues surrounding weather modification. For example, lets say that we get to a point in science and technology where we can initiate or modify storms. This could even apply to cloud seeding, I guess. Say a municipality A modifies an east-moving developing storm during a tornado watch and causes it to rain itself out early west of town, providing crop moisture for the farmers west of town and avoiding any risk of tornadogenesis. The death of this storm kicks up an OFB that lights up a storm to the south of town, which eventually goes tornadic and clobbers the neighboring municipality B. Is municipality A on the hook for the storm that clobbered B? What about the farmers just east of municipality A, who claim they were robbed of the rain that they would have had? Who has the burden of proof? etc. etc.

Completely hypothetical, since we may never get to the point of weather modification. But to bring it to something real, I imagine that studies will eventually show that large windmill farms modify local climatology -- all that energy comes from somewhere -- and when they do, will the locals be able to sue the owners of windmill farms if they can show that the farms are negatively impacting their interests?

Going along with that, I seen this the other day: http://abcnews.go.com/story?id=8055781