A severe winter storm in 2021 brought Jackson, Mississippi's water crisis to a breaking point, leaving 150,000 residents without reliable service. But the emergency merely exposed what tests had revealed years earlier: lead contamination levels comparable to Flint, Michigan.
A group of Jackson residents filed a class action lawsuit over illnesses and disabilities due to lead poisoning from Jackson’s water supply. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on how and whether they can sue.
Sterling’s Class Action Suit
Priscilla Sterling is a longtime Jackson schoolteacher, living in the city with her extended family. Several of Sterling’s children have been diagnosed with lead poisoning, and she herself suffers from headaches. Sterling is only one of several named plaintiffs describing their losses in the 2022 class action lawsuit Sterling v. City of Jackson, which sought to name almost all county residents as class members.
The plaintiffs sued not only the City of Jackson but also two former mayors, three city officials, and a water management firm. Their allegations are complex, but they all involve levels of contamination in the water and what the City did or did not do to protect citizens.
What Plaintiffs Say Went Wrong
Acidic drinking water can corrode pipes, leaching out their metals — like lead — for eventual consumption. The plaintiffs assert that two of Jackson’s major sources of drinking water, the Pearl River and the Ross Barnett Reservoir, are more acidic than water management advises. A whistleblower claimed that many of Jackson’s antiquated pipes are riddled with lead joints.
The complaint alleges that the City, the mayors, and public works officials of Jackson deliberately neglected necessary upgrades to the water treatment system or made inadequate changes. The City also chose to switch part of the public water supply (or PWS) from well water to the Pearl River and the reservoir. The complaint says that this increased the acidity of the PWS, potentially leaching more lead into the drinking water.
Further, the complaint claims that city officials made misleading statements to the public and even gave dangerous advice. As reports of high lead levels emerged, the mayor and city officials assured the public that “we’re not Flint” — that the levels of lead reported were simply problems at specific properties. Later, when separate breakdowns introduced the risk of bacterial contamination, the City issued boil-water notices, which became extremely common in Jackson. Boiling water may well kill bacteria, but it can concentrate lead. This is an integral argument to the plaintiffs' state-created danger theory of liability. They argue Jackson officials didn't just ignore the problem; they actively lied about it.
City officials have denied almost all the plaintiffs’ allegations. They especially dispute the charge that they had done nothing to warn or prepare Jackson citizens for possible contamination.
Can a Public Water Supply Be a Civil Rights Issue?
The plaintiffs seek damages and action on state law negligence claims and, most notably, violations of their federal constitutional rights. The lawsuit alleges that the City and various officials violated the plaintiffs’ right to “bodily integrity” under the Fourteenth Amendment by exposing them to contaminated water “with deliberate indifference to the known risks of harm.” The complaint also invokes the “state-created danger” theory, asserting that the plaintiffs had a right to be free of “dangerous situations … affirmatively created and/or caused by persons acting under color of state law.”
In 2024, the district court dismissed all claims against the City and the other defendants. The court stated that the Fifth Circuit (which includes Mississippi) had never accepted the theory of state-created danger as a civil rights violation. Moreover, the court concluded that “the City owed no affirmative duty to protect [plaintiffs] from the foreseeable dangers of rising lead levels in the water.” The judge considered that, for several reasons, there could be no constitutional violation of the plaintiffs’ bodily integrity. In particular, the defendants committed no “element of direct, intentional invasion” of their bodies by providing the water.
The City Loses on Appeal, Then Gets Another Chance
The plaintiffs appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In November 2025, a three-judge panel rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. Their opinion specifically rejected the district court’s reasoning about bodily integrity. What was more, the panel accepted the state-created danger doctrine on behalf of the Fifth Circuit, ending its long holdout against it. This decision remanded the plaintiffs’ case against the City (but not against the public officials) so that it could proceed.
But the City and the other defendants did not accept the decision, which they said made them look like “do-nothing, lying villains.” The City requested a rehearing en banc, so that all seventeen Circuit judges could decide whether to agree to the court’s new position on the law. Finally, the Fifth Circuit elected to vacate the panel’s 2025 opinion and convene to rehear the case.
On May 12, the entire Court of Appeals heard oral arguments (unofficial recording and AI transcript). On the plaintiffs’ side, Attorney Mark Chalos compared the case to Guertin v. Michigan, where the Sixth Circuit recognized Flint plaintiffs’ right to sue for violation of their bodily integrity. For the City of Jackson, Attorney Clarence Webster again urged that the plaintiffs’ facts were incorrect. He argued that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to clean water, and failing to provide it is not a constitutional violation. Therefore, the City cannot have infringed on the plaintiffs’ civil rights.
The Fifth Circuit has been one of the last remaining holdouts to adopting the state-created danger doctrine. While difficult cases to win, most federal appellate courts recognize the doctrine. Whatever the Fifth Circuit’s decision, it will affect future lawsuits against government actors in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
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