Unuusal Katrina Case

We have an interesting legal case starting here in New Orleans, an after affect of Hurricane Katrina. It's the sate of Louisiana against St. Rita's nursing home. The state is charging the owners, a man and wife, Salvador and Mabel Mangano, with negligent homicide in the drowning of 35 of the residents of the home.
The Manganos are charged with killing the 35 and with 64 counts of "cruelty to the infirm", because they failed to evacuate the nursing home of the elderly residents as the hurricane approached my state. You see, the state and St. Bernard Parish (the county adjacent to New Orleans that was completely wiped out by the hurricane) allege that because the owners ignored their order to evacuate everyone form the nursing home, those residents were killed. Water poured into the home and was up the the ceiling within 20 minutes of its appearance, drowning the 35 residents who were confined to wheelchairs or beds. The other 29 residents (of the 64 who were in the home) were rescued by fireman, police and any civilian who was in the area by placing them on mattresses and floating them through broken windows.
The St. Bernard Parish government had also ordered the home evacuated as a precaution, though it had never before flooded or come close to flooding. But the couple is being charged because they violated state law that requires nursing homes be cleared before a storm of that magnitude. In fact, St. Bernard officials say in court testimony that they called Mabel Magano the day before the storm and offered two buses to evacuate everyone. Sounds like the state has a good case, huh?
Not so fast! There are two sides to every case, and this one has two that each have some merit. In their defense the Maganos' lawyer has said the couple are innocent, saying that the nursing home had never flooded in the 20 years it has been in business and that the Manganos were worried that some of the elderly residents were so feeble that they would die in the evacuation. This is in fact what happened at several other nursing homes that were evacuated. Several residents dies from the trauma of the move.
Further, in their defense, the owners said they contacted every resident's family or legal guardian and told them they could evacuate their relative or charge themselves if they wished. Some did that, 64 did not. To make it even more complicated for the jury, the Mangano defense has filed a legal document asking the judge in the case to add a slew of local, state and federal officials (they built the levees which broke unexpectedly because of poor design), including my state's governor....added to the suit and blamed instead of the Mangano couple. The allegation by the defense is that the Manganos are being used as a scapegoat for the failures of public officials to protect residents from the disaster.
So who is at fault for the drowning, the government , the relatives for leaving their loved ones in danger or the Mangano couple? Or was it a terrible accident that was unavoidable and for which no legal fault should be assigned? What do you think?
Remember all those handouts the teacher used to give in elementary school? I thought they covered just about every subject possible until I heard about the handouts at one New York School. That one may have been a little confusing for the kiddies at Pine Elementary. In fact, school officials apologized to mom and dad after an X-rated font was used on a third grade spelling packet handed out to parents.
The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet. They were engaged in things most stick men would be arrested if caught doing. Officials with the Monroe-Woodbury School District in Orange County apologized last week after parents at Pine Tree Elementary School were given the spelling packet at an open house, but spelling class was never more interesting for the kids there.
Administrators said the teacher did not use the font intentionally, but that they would continue to investigate the matter by studying the fonts...again and again.....just to make sure.....