FLINT, MI -- A federal judge is stepping away from a marathon trial tied to the Flint water crisis because of a medical issue.
U.S. District Judge Judith E. Levy will be replaced in the case by Federal Magistrate Judge David Grand as the jury in the trial continues deliberations that started last month, according to a news advisory from the court on Tuesday, Aug. 9.
The trial involves four Flint children who are suing two engineering consultants for injuries, including brain damage, that they claim to have suffered after drinking water that was contaminated by lead.
Jurors in the trial were scheduled to have resumed their deliberations for a fifth day on Tuesday following an 11-day break.
That break came after the eight-person jury told Levy on July 28 that they were deadlocked, a source familiar with the case told MLive-The Flint Journal previously. Levy instructed the jurors to continue working toward a verdict at that time, the same source said.
The judge last met with attorneys involved in the case during a hearing on Aug. 3, according to the federal court docket, but it’s unknown what was discussed because the transcript for that proceeding was sealed by the judge.
Levy was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama on March 14, 2014. She previously served as an assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan from 2000 until 2014, and as chief of the Civil Rights Unit in that office from 2010 until 2014. She has also served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Michigan since 2002.
Grand was sworn in as a U.S. magistrate judge for the Eastern District of Michigan in November 2011. He received his law degree from the University of Michigan and previously worked in the Ann Arbor office of Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone where he practiced antitrust and sports law, according to the U.S. District Court’s website.
The civil trial that he is replacing Levy in began in late February and is considered a bellwether because it could provide guidance to other Flint residents who have filed similar lawsuits against the engineering companies -- Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam.
Veolia and LAN are accused of professional negligence in the case by the four Flint children, who allege the companies gave faulty advice to the city about water treatment and because they failed to warn the public about the potential for lead contamination in the Flint water system.
Although the children claim they suffered acquired brian injuries as a result of drinking Flint water, the companies have challenged those injury claims and said that government officials are solely responsible for the water crisis.
Veolia and LAN have so far declined to settle water crisis lawsuits pending against them in state and federal courts, choosing instead to let a jury decide its liability for Flint’s water problems.
Four other entities -- the state of Michigan, the city of Flint, McLaren Regional Hospital and Rowe Professional Services -- previously avoided trials related to the water crisis by agreeing to a $626 million settlement of pending lawsuits against them.
Levy gave final approval to that settlement in November.
In instructing the jury in the pending civil trial, Levy advised the five women and three men that they had a duty to determine the facts in the case.
“Reach a just verdict, regardless of the consequences ...,” Levy told the jurors in the closing days of testimony. “Your sole interest is to seek the truth ... solely based on the evidence and the law.”
Read more at The Flint Journal:
Jury tells judge it’s deadlocked in marathon Flint water crisis civil trial
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