St. Bernard Parish v. Lafarge North America, Inc.

DON R. WILLETT, Circuit Judge:

When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, a barge moored by Lafarge wound up at large. According to New Orleans residents then represented by Richard T. Seymour, the breakaway barge hurtled through a floodwall, unleashing catastrophic flooding in the Lower 9th Ward before finally coming to rest atop several homes and a yellow school bus. (It remains disputed whether the barge caused the breach or surfed through it after the floodwall gave way.)

Seymour withdrew from the Barge Litigation in 2011. But when it settled several years later, he moved to intervene in this…