Good.
Vince Ryan
Harris County on Tuesday set in motion a $100 million environmental lawsuit against Volkswagen, claiming emissions from 6,000 diesel cars circulating on roadways in the region have caused harm to the population. County Attorney Vince Ryan said his review of filings indicated this could be the first government suit against the car company since the executives admitted to cheating on emissions monitoring in diesel cars released since 2009.
Commissioners Court approved the suit Tuesday morning and hired three law firms to handle the matter on a contingency basis. The county plans to file the suit Tuesday afternoon, according to Robert Soard, first assistant county attorney.
The county does not have Volkswagens in its central fleet, according to Dre Dupont, who oversees the vehicles. Instead, the focus of this suit will be on the extent to which the car company and its affiliates violated Texas emissions standards, creating a public health hazard for everyone within the borders of Harris County.
The Press is pretty snarky about this, but as Judge Emmett noted in the Chron story, VW has already admitted liability. Why wouldn’t we sue? I don’t know what the likelihood is of collecting a substantial sum, and it may be that our suit gets consolidated with the many others already out there, but VW deserves all the trouble it’s going to get. Good for Vince Ryan for taking the initiative.
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