No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

Hear this story A federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to clean drinking water in a Sept. 4 decision rejecting Jackson, Mississippi, residents’ lawsuit over the city’s lead-contaminated water system .

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling dismissing residents’ 2022 lawsuit. The plaintiffs, Priscilla Sterling, Raine Becker, Shawn Miller and John Bennett, alleged that the city knowingly allowed residents to drink unsafe water.

They argued that the water contamination violated their constitutional right to bodily integrity under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

In the majority decision, Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that while the deprivation of clean water was “grievous,” it did “not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.”