![farmers[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/farmers1.jpg)
From the Insurance Journal:
Insurer mysteriously withdraws high-profile lawsuit for climate damages in Chicago flooding case
Farmers Insurance Co. has withdrawn its lawsuit against Chicago for climate-related flooding, marking an abrupt end to a novel legal claim that had tantalized observers with its prospects for pushing cities to act against climate change.
The company filed for dismissal Tuesday after its case against dozens of municipalities in the Chicago area gained national media attention and no short amount of criticism from local officials, who warned that taxpayers would shoulder the cost of the class-action suit.
A spokesman for Farmers said in a statement that the company reversed course after the lawsuit successfully caught the attention of municipalities, which the company had accused of mismanaging their stormwater systems. The lawsuit claimed that 600 homes were damaged during a downpour in April 2013 after local officials allegedly failed to drain underground storm tunnels and deploy protective barriers. It also said the officials failed to account for heavier rainfall from global warming.
Source: http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060000761
Hmmm, they filed a lawsuit to elevate awareness? I’m not buying it.
Chances are some corporate weasel halfwit came to his/her senses and realized three things:
1) They can’t absolutely link severe weather events leading to flooding and climate change, so their lawsuit was unwinnable. See the data below.
Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950.
Percent of US streamguages above “bankfull streamflow” defined as the highest daily mean streamflow value expected to occur, on average, once in every 2.3 years. Source: USGS
Flood losses as a percentage of US GDP have dropped by about 75% since 1940.
Annual flood losses have decreased from about 0.2% of US GDP to <0.05% since 1940. Flood loss data from NOAA Hydrologic Information Center.
h/t to Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. for those graphs.
2) The bad press they were getting probably was projected to cost more than they could recover.
3) The reason insurance is purchased at all is to CYA in unforseen circumstances, including “acts of God”. For Farmers Insurance Group to put the onus of being prepared for all such contingencies is counter-intuitive for the need to purchase insurance at all.
The lesson from Farmers was “Why buy insurance from us at all? If you do and you don’t meet our retroactively applied arbitrary and unscientific risk standards, we’ll just sue you to get the money back”.
Idiots.
Dweebs…
Had no idea about this – glad we don’t use them. Idiots indeed.
Ahhh I see now, CAGW is all about challenging the Almighty. What was one known as an “Act of God” is now an “Act of Mankind” got it, it is the ultimate atheists creed.
getting unbelievable
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average
weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the
mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging
from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period for
averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological
Organization. The relevant quantities are most often surface variables
such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Climate in a wider sense is
the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.
Well, IPCC AR5 glossary says climate is just the cumulative effects of weather.
They found out that the pockets they wanted to pick were well connected politically , and paybacks are hell?
Nah, not in Chicago….
Every insurance policy is like another annuity for the insurance company – until they have to pay off. If they can get a court decision that basically says they *never* have to pay off, it’s pure gravy for them – until the payees discover the truth and see that buying ‘insurance’ is pointless.
Great move by the Farmers Insurance. It was about time
The reality is that climate obsession has given cover to governments worldwide to neglect to do the basic infrastructure spending that used to be a hallmark of good governance. Between nihilistic greens opposing every advance of civilization and climate kooks declaring the end of the world, infrastructure to protect from flood and storm is not keeping up in many places.
Yet another cost of the climate madness being inflicted upon us.
From NBC News version:
First, who knew folksy Farmers Insurance, with their image of genuinely caring for their customers since days gone by when they offered insurance to farmers, actually belonged to a money-grubbing multinational conglomerate?
Second, if a municipality should dare to compose a climate action plan that would in any way confess they might be unprepared for the maximum possible disastrous catastrophes imagined by the IPCC, EPA, WWTF, GreenWar, or the Sierra Leone Club, they are leaving themselves open to lawsuits for failing to sufficiently respond to a public safety issue.
Thus the message to all politicians is, don’t put anything in writing that can bite you later, don’t do any climate action plan.
That’ll work.
Illinois got more rain when it was cooler!
http://www.isws.illinois.edu/atmos/statecli/climate-change/iltren-temp.png
http://www.isws.illinois.edu/atmos/statecli/climate-change/iltren-prcp.png
“Climate Change in Illinois – Temperature and Precipitation”
http://www.isws.illinois.edu/atmos/statecli/climate-change/iltrends.htm
Sweet Old Bob says: “They found out that the pockets they wanted to pick were well connected politically, and paybacks are hell? Nah, not in Chicago….”
It may have been that horse’s head they found in their bed that changed their mind.
“””””….. Nicholas Schroeder says:
June 7, 2014 at 1:15 pm
………………………………………
Well, IPCC AR5 glossary says climate is just the cumulative effects of weather…….””””‘
Finally they got something correct.
A more mathematical statement of what they said is:
Climate is the integral of weather.
On average, hurricanes don’t do anything. It’s only when you cherry pick some data during a hurricane, while it is passing over (literally) somebody’s beach cottage, that you notice anything untoward happening. Averaged over 30 years, there is no climate effect of any hurricane I’ve ever heard of.
Come to think of it, dropping a nuke on Nagasaki , didn’t do much on average. You just shouldn’t do that sort of thing too often.
Only a miniscule number of parameters are ever included in any discussion of climate; yet every single energy transaction that ever takes place anywhere on this planet, has an effect.
Only Mother Gaia, keeps tabs on every single transaction without exception; and so she sets the climate at exactly what it is supposed to be.
No matter what we do, the climate will always be correct.
In the UK, insurers will only provide flood insurance to areas not at risk of flooding. So, if it’s available, a householder would be a fool to buy it, on the basis that there’s very little risk.
The tiny little problem with going to court is they want to see the evidence. That is where climate crock becomes unstuck. They can’t introduce “what if” climate models. Then you have to show it’s caused by man’s greenhouse gases. The defense will then look back into time, climate crock becomes unstuck yet again.
Hummm, I seem to reember reading about how good Chicago’s fiscal condition was a while ago. That may have something to do with it…… Chicago should probably sue them. They really need the money since they have run themselves into the ground.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/09/fiscal-crisis-in-chicago-pensions-31.html
Farmers ads claim they are making you smarter about Insurance and then ask “what if you didn’t know …….. [such and such]” and then list several things they say could hurt you and concludes with a catchy tune “We are Farmers, Bum bum bum.” Maybe, Farmers has finally gotten smarter about global warming.
The gold in them thar’ climate hills is gettin’ a mite scarce.
Occasionally they do stupid things, despite being folksy – didn’t they get much bad PR a few years ago for denying a claim by a woman whose estranged husband or such deliberately smashed into her on the freeway?
Would you use an insurance company that doesn’t know how to write proper English? “Get’s”……
It’s simple.
As long as there’s a long-term climate threat they can point to, the insurance companies can demand rate increases from their state regulating authorities.
…and due to the nature of the threat, they’ll probably never have to pay out in the lifetime of the people asking for higher rates.
Basically, extra profits for effectively zero risk.
Hey, I’m perfectly fine with suing municipalities that fail to build or maintain infrastructure like flood control. Katrina demonstrated that the levees were woefully neglected, Sandy demonstrated that much of NYCs flood control had been allowed to decay and new construction failed to take into account the possibility of something that has happened in the past.
Here in Calgary the City has been told over and over by hired consultants that they need to dredge the rivers and berm their banks, and they repeatedly ignored or laughed at those suggestions. June 2013 we had a flood that was the worst since the 1930s, and almost all of the damage was caused by a city that failed to do their most basic job. In the full year since, they have still not removed any of the rock and sand that the flood washed in, and we are actually in more danger of flooding this year than we were last year.
But attributing floods and “future climate” to “climate change” is never, EVER going to win. We WUWT regulars are more than aware that IF this stuff ends up in court it will come out, publicly, exactly what the charts above show: nothing unusual is happening. The “climate change” industry will not allow that.
I wonder if Farmers were preparing their case and researching their facts, and suddenly came to the realization that “manmade climate change” is neither supported by evidence, nor provable, nor even possible.
It appears to be the fault of the press that this was reported as a climate-change story at all. The suit appears to really be about cities failing to maintain and operate their flood-control hardware properly. I don’t see anything either unrealistic or immoral about a suit over that.
Except — flood insurance in the US is a function of the federal government. Farmers doesn’t sell it except as agents for the federal agency. So how could a flood affect Farmers’ bottom line at all?
The insurance industry has been pushing climate catastrophe / CAGW since the 1970s. It looked good while the correlation lasted, then it began to fall apart. The story now stinks. 17+ years of no global warming – the tipping point is soon – when the warming = the standstill. Cooling will be a catastrophic disaster for Warmists.
The jig is almost over.
It is obvious that it is time to collectivise the insurance industry. Think of all the Americans and illegal aliens who are uninsured for global warming. Think of the children!
We need obama-climate-care insurance. Just give the gov’t $$$ and they will keep the oceans from rising and the sky from falling.
Anyone read State of Fear by Michael Crichton?
If you haven’t, you should.
Very informative.
I’m reminded of ambulance chaser advertising so common now.
Heart attack and stroke are now “injuries”.
‘
Good Old Farmers Insurance Group! “Get’s you back where you belong”….Out of La-La Land.
Reblogged this on Sierra Foothill Commentary and commented:
If the insurance companies force small towns and village to prepare for global warming, and Mother Nature decided she wants 20-30 years of cooling, who gets sued?
How many town/city/county councils have adopted feel-good, get-on-board climate plans, believing that it was free and there was no down side – just more votes from their simpleton constituents? I’m amused that Farmers would call them on it. In that sense, I would have liked to see them win. Creating consequences for politicians is a good thing. Maybe their suit will shut some of them up.
The Insurance industry along with Nuclear and ‘Big’ Energy has been an tacit friend of CAGW for a long time now. It would be interesting to know how much funding support for ‘research’ into future climate patterns etc have come from companies like Zurich.
Today I watched a NOVA show about fractals. It was interesting and informative until the last ten minutes which was all about figuring the fractals of jungle trees to figure out how much CO2 the trees consumed.
‘This will save us from global warming’ exclaimed the young scientists who obviously got a nifty trip to Brazil by petitioning for money from the government about global warming.
This has infected ALL the biological sciences. They are all rushing to claim global warming will kill all corals or turtles or polar bears, etc. etc. Moths in Norway, even! It never ends. This is all out of control at this point.
The environmental left is about to launch its second wave of national law suits, this time one in each state and in state courts. They intend to use children as plaintiffs. They will, however, face the same problem as Farmers, they will not be able to show by a fair proponderance of the evidence that CO2 is the proximate cause of anything that could harm children associated with climate change.
much made out of this report by Australian MSM & Guardian this week:
5 June: Guardian: Helen Davidson: Homebuyers must factor in climate change, warns Australian watchdog
Consumer and climate experts say extreme weather could raise insurance premiums and lower property values
Buyers must beware as climate change threatens to increase insurance premiums and lower property values, Australia’s Climate Institute and the consumer watchdog Choice have warned…
The organisations said the lack of information from governments and insurance companies was leaving homebuyers and owners at risk.
“Councils should be providing better information about historical climate data about whether a property is at risk, and what they think about some of the future risks might be,” the Climate Institute’s chief executive, John Connor, told Guardian Australia.
“And there are some basics, such as the full range of hazard mapping, that we know some local governments have got and which should be publicly available. But they’re not,” he said…
***The report made a number of recommendations to buyers, insurers and governments, including mandated disclosure of all available hazard mapping…
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) agreed with some recommendations to governments, but not those to insurers, which included adding “policy options to include climate-exacerbated risks including erosion, soil contraction and actions of the sea”…
However, the council disagreed with the recommendation the government “disclose current and projected insurance premiums for a property at the point of sale, based on independent metrics (such as those presented in this report)”…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/04/home-buyers-must-factor-in-climate-change-warns-australian-watchdog
***dated 7 June, NBC ends this nonsense by repeating the false China narrative which was corrected on 3rd June:
7 June: NBC: Heesun Wee: From Beer to Insurance: Businesses Bet on Climate Change
So SABMiller had an idea for Mozambique. The London-based company would manufacture a brew with one of Africa’s most widely available crops — the cassava…
Also known as yuca, the root resembles a potato. SABMiller would support local, sustainable farming. There was just one problem.
Yuca rots quickly. “In practice, it’s a nightmare,” said Andres Penate, a spokesman for SABMiller. So the brewer helped create a mobile unit that’s used to process the crop on the farm. The first commercial scale, cassava-based beer — called “Impala” — was launched about three years ago. The project today helps cassava farmers earn income, some for the first time…
Recent reports show human-induced climate change already is being felt. Water is more scarce. There’s more rain. Heat waves are growing in frequency and severity. Wildfires are intensifying…
Gap, for example, absorbed higher cotton costs after precipitation and drought changes in China, according to the carbon project report…
Among S&P 500 companies, on average 4 percent of their annual capital expenditure has been allocated to lower emissions, according to the report. The capital expenditure ranged from less than 1 percent for consumer product companies to 23 percent for utilities, which use a lot of water…
Based in Zurich, global reinsurer Swiss Re has been involved in the climate debate since the 1980s. Its customers range from companies to cities, trying to manage weather-related hazards.
Since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, for example, Swiss Re has been working with New York City to quantify climate change-related risks and identify cost-effective measures to shore up buildings and other structures such as elevating electrical systems, and building barriers to a storm surge…
In East Africa, venture developer CleanStar Ventures has helped create a smoke-free ethanol cookstove, an alternative to charcoal. The $35 stoves are being sold and distributed by NDZiLO Mozambique — which the venture developer has a stake in. The stoves can run on ethanol made from local cassava.
Due to political unrest, ethanol is being imported to power the stoves…
Campbell Soup is thinking about climate change, too…
***A day after the U.S. announced plans to reduce carbon emissions at America’s coal-fired power plants, China — the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter — stepped into the debate Tuesday. China said it will limit its total emissions for the first time by the end of this decade…
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/beer-insurance-businesses-bet-climate-change-n124781
NBC – you don’t do fact-checking? that would explain much of the propaganda you put out daily:
3 June: NYT Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin: Behind the Mask – A Reality Check on China’s Plans for a Carbon Cap
BEIJING — Having covered China’s stance on global warming since 1988, I’ve gotten attuned to the need to tread carefully when something is said that feels like a shift in the official position of this greenhouse gas giant…
Here’s how things played out. An adviser to the Chinese government on climate change was quoted by Reuters as saying the following at a Beijing climate-policy conference on Tuesday:
“The government will use two ways to control CO2 emissions in the next five-year plan, by intensity and an absolute cap.”
The story quickly pivoted to how significant this would be given the context of President Obama’s move and informal climate talks starting on Wednesday in Bonn, Germany…
The Guardian quickly followed Reuters with “China pledges to limit carbon emissions for first time,” a piece canvassing climate campaigners but offering no reinforcing input from the Chinese government.
I consulted with The Times’s Beijng bureau. Christopher Buckley, a reporter [based in Hong Kong] who in 2011 had covered China’s emissions plans [and similar pushes from advisers to adopt a cap] while with Reuters, spoke with He Jiankun, who told him repeatedly that he did not in any way speak for the government, or the full expert climate committee…
Here’s Buckley’s translation:
“It’s not the case that the Chinese government has made any decision. This is a suggestion from experts, because now they are exploring how emissions can be controlled in the 13th Five Year Plan…. This is a view of experts; that’s not saying it’s the government’s. I’m not a government official and I don’t represent the government.”
A Reuters reporter told me tonight that a correction was being posted [it’s here], but not before other newspapers – including USA Today with a piece on China’s “emissions pledge” – built on the report…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/behind-the-mask-a-reality-check-on-chinas-plans-for-a-carbon-cap/
A new form of “Ambulance Chaser” !
No wonder that “Insurers”, i.e. State Farm + Allstate + Progressive (Ha ha) and the MegaBank Re’s, are all over “Global Warming” and “Climate Change” to get a “fist full of dollars” for no good reason other than greed.
And the AGU is fueling the “race cars” and lining their pockets !
Well, after all, they [AGU] Pay Mann’s Legal fees without question nor review. The Life of Mann !
This story reminds me of the silly “green” rules local councils impose on people, without the slightest thought about the consequenses. In Australia bush fire seasons are reported to be getting worse due to climate change. What is ignored is no-one is allowed to adequately reduce fuel loads in areas prone to bush fires. Where people build and live in “the bush” the residents are banned, and can be fined, for clearing bush from properlties in fire prone areas. And if it is a native plant, tree or bush be very affraid.
A classic example of this lunacy is in the 2009 Victorian bush fires, the first fire started by a power line that failed and fell to the ground sparking, an owner of a property was fined $50,000 by the local council after the fires had ripped through the area without damaging his property simply due to the fact he had cleared bush fuel load around it.
As with poeple in flood prone areas of Brisbane for instance, property owners in fire prone areas in Australia that have been struck in recent years cannot purchase bush fire insurance. This whole thing also reminds me of a film staring Billy Connolly called “The man who sued God.”, the story being that the insurance company would not pay out for a lightening strike on his boat classing the event as an “Act of God”, really funny!
> kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
> June 7, 2014 at 1:25 pm
> Second, if a municipality should dare to compose a
> climate action plan that would in any way confess they
> might be> unprepared for the maximum possible
> disastrous catastrophes imagined by the IPCC, EPA,
> WWTF, GreenWar, or the Sierra Leone Club, they are
> leaving themselves open to lawsuits for failing to
> sufficiently respond to a public safety issue.
>
> Thus the message to all politicians is, don’t put
> anything in writing that can bite you later, don’t do
> any climate action plan.
>
> That’ll work.
That may have been intended as sarcasm on your part, but unfortunately it reflects reality, insofar as the legal system can be considered “reality”. Case in point, here in Canada, we had a lawsuit many years ago against “MUC” (Montreal Urban Community, i.e. Greater Montreal regional government). I can’t find references on Google. Off the top of my head, I believe it was a class-action suit on behalf of asthma sufferers, etc, against the MUC government. The claim was that MUC was not doing enough to clamp down on open fires (barbecues, etc) and property owners who didn’t maintain their properties, allowing pollen-emitting weeds to flourish. The response from MUC was to immediately repeal all such bye-laws. I.e. stop attempting to control open fires and pollen-emitting weeds. The result was to remove potential future liability for MUC, whilst making things even worse for asthma sufferers. To paraphrase a 1970’s saying about speed limits… it’s not a good idea, it’s the law.
Nice cheap shot/strawman.
You can have your “act of god” back, then maybe you can explain why god murders little babies with tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides, avalanches, etc.
Utterly intellectually deficient.
Insurance is another example of the Great Climate Change Protection Racket, Lloyds of London are into it in a big way, employing attack dogs such as Trevor Maynard:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/08/lloyds-insurer-account-climate-change-extreme-weather-losses
Could be a business opportunity here, offer insurance that does NOT have a premium for “Climate Change”.
Jimbo says:
June 7, 2014 at 2:05 pm
Then how do you explain the US Supreme Court decision which basically said that CO2 is pollution if the EPA says it is?
Farmers sued not only Chicago, but about 100 small municipalities in the three county area. Their big legal hurdle was qualified municipal immunity which protects towns and cities from liability for making policy decisions. I briefly looked at the issue when the suits were filed because I’m a lawyer and a taxpayer in one of the small communities sued and a win by Farmers would necessarily increase my taxes to pay off the judgment. It looked to me that the immunity issue is insurmountable and Farmers was headed for some very bad publicity. In effect, Farmers was suing its own policyholder customers because those customers were also part of the taxpayer class who would have their taxes increased to pay the judgment. I have a suspicion that several of the larger law firms in the area, perhaps some of them Farmers’ customers, sent protest letters with short memorandums of law to the company triggering a reexamination of the suit. Other insurers like Allstate would have been able to use Farmers’ suit as an advertizing issue to draw Farmers customers away. This suit was ill-conceived and it might have had something to do with the European thinking of Swiss Re, the parent company, but that’s speculation, but European law is quite different than in the US.
From Jeff Alberts on June 7, 2014 at 9:06 pm:
Little babies are innocent so their souls go to Heaven once they stop wearing the flesh, thus they receive the ultimate reward, without having to endure the many years of endemic corruption when they could deny themselves their reward. So what does it matter?
It’s like with being suddenly struck down, a battle with cancer, or fading into shutdown with dementia. The prize is the same, you’re all set to enjoy a peaceful eternity, the prologue is merely different means of cashing in your ticket.
kadaka,
do not feed the troll.
By the way, the kadaka fern is a really good looking plant.
I read somewhere that the Chicago River flowed north into Lake Michigan and that it was used as part of a giant sewage system. As Chicago grew someone realized they were pooping (into the river) in their drinking water (from the lake) so engineers got together and reversed the flow of the river (over 100 years ago). Where you see the problems of serious flooding, mankind’s footprint is never far behind.
RE the typo in the logo used to illustrate this article (Get’s You Back Where You Belong). I don’t think the illustration is a genuine Farmers logo. I found the company’s logo at (http://media.merchantcircle.com/19479309/FarmersInsurance_full.jpeg) — in it, “Gets” is spelled properly. … Admittedly, I have no idea what the slogan is supposed to mean, but then my sense of belonging has always been a little uncertain.
What? Is it supposed to be “git’s” you back?
Murdering babies and the elderly isn’t a sin then. Got it. Such explanations as yours are such a cop out.
From Jeff Alberts on June 8, 2014 at 8:22 am:
As my father did fade into shutdown with dementia, and it became clear keeping the body alive per the desires of the state and the nursing home long after the physical mind he had before was irrevocably destroyed was the singular greatest cruelty I have ever witnessed committed against man or beast, carried out with an institutionalized “compassion” as would Josef Mengele’s staff as they researched how far the organs can degrade before life is irreversibly unsustainable, I have considerably “liberalized” my view on “murdering” the elderly over time.
We can put down terminally ill animals. They are dumb creatures who can’t understand why they are in pain. It is a kindness. My father became a dumb creature who couldn’t understand why he was in pain.
For the other, my country has nuclear weapons, armed drones, and curious Supreme Court decisions. That could be a very long wide-ranging discussion.
Oh well, however it happens, someday I too will be done wearing the flesh. It is inevitable, I do not fear it. Someday you’ll be done too. Then either you will know you were wrong, or I won’t know that I was wrong.
Either way, I win.
Farmers of Salem years back refused to write me an additional policy on a new purchase. The reason given was Farmers expected greatly increased hurricane damage due to global warming and declined to write policies for properties near the coast. Note: the property in question is 100 ft above sea level.
The policy was reversed some years later when their predictions proved very wrong. They took a hit from the lack of underwriting.
Insurance companies are expected to assess risk, and command a premium that will cover that risk. Suing anyone else because they didn’t do their job had to fail. If they determine the risk istoo high, as Hell_Is_Like_Newark states, the insurance is not offered at all. If they claim that they relied wholly on Government data, and were misled, all one needs to do is make sure that information is widely broadcast on news media, and their stock (and customer count) will plummet as people realize they’re not doing their job, and all could be left high and dry. There was no way Farmers would have gone all the way to court on this.
This was simply a publicity stunt.
Don’t insurance companies have ability to increase rates in an area?
That will get people’s attention, perhaps even the scummy dynasty of Chicago mayors.
It is a challenge to evaluate risk, perhaps there are or could be evaluating agencies. Certainly there are consulting engineering companies who could advise municipalities on the state of their infrastructure and maintenance practices. Today the are non-destructive test methods to inspect pipes, for example. (On my street they replaced fifteen feet of century old wooden stave sewer pipe as a result of inspection (video camera on long cable), the rest was considered OK. They also mapped exactly where each house connection to the sewer pipe was (maps old and new aren’t always accurate, for various reasons including contractor shortcuts and recording errors).
(Yes, it sounds as though Farmers were trying to get higher premiums retroactively, in one sense.)
Farmers insurance relies heavily on an individual’s credit when determining premiums. They use credit to predict losses with certainty using quasi-science for justification in raising the rates on low income families by as much as 150%. How is it their magical credit scoring system failed to see the effects of climate change and the rain which caused the flooding? Sad underwriting techniques produce higher losses than desired with no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks to faboutlaws for an informed comment. Farmers did something very stupid and then decided to wise up.
I don’t know if anyone else mentioned it, BUT . . . . most US states (cities, counties) have maximum limits IF . . . . you can even get “permission” to sue the “sovereign” (the government).