The U.S. Justice Department has formally appealed a federal judge’s approval of class action status for a lawsuit blaming the Army Corps of Engineers for declining lost property values caused in St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward by floodwaters during Hurricane Katrina and later storms. That status would make thousands of residents and businesses eligible for damage awards that could total billions of dollars.

In her May ruling, Court of Claims Judge Susan Braden said she had entered only a partial final judgement — awarding $3.16 million plus interest to six “test case” landowners in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward — to let the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit review that and earlier decisions she made in the case when the Justice Department appealed. The Justice Department submitted its appeal to the appeals court in Washington on June 30, and the court posted the notice online Wednesday (July 6). The court hears appeals of cases decided by the Court of Claims and the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

The Justice Department’s notice of appeal is just the first step in a process that is likely to take months, as each side presents written arguments. The appeals court may also decide to hold a hearing on those arguments before ruling.

In an earlier, May 1, 2015, ruling in the case, Braden found that the corps, through the “construction, expansions, operation and failure to maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, caused increased storm surge flooding on plaintiffs’ properties during Hurricane Katrina and subsequent hurricanes and severe storms, effecting a temporary taking under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” That amendment, more widely known for forbidding forced testimony against one’s self in a criminal case, prohibits the federal government from taking the value of property without “just compensation.”

A week later, Braden convened a settlement conference in New Orleans and told the parties to discuss mediation or confirm her opinion. The Justice Department refused, indicating that it would instead appeal. Both sides later decided to let Braden issue the partial final judgement that she announced this May, as to present a broader view of the case to the appeals court.

In that ruling, Braden found the corps owes St. Bernard Parish $863,363 for temporary lost value of three properties that it owns and that were part of the test case. And it owes New Orleans almost $2.6 million in lost property tax revenue that would have been collected from landowners in the Lower 9th Ward in 2006 and 2007. St. Bernard Parish was not owed lost tax revenue because taxes paid by its property owners were more closely aligned with the taxes due in 2006 and 2007.

The takings suit was filed in October 2005, barely two months after Katrina struck. Braden has said she was forced to delay key rulings in the case because more conventional damage lawsuits were still pending in federal court in New Orleans.

Those cases included more than 500,000 claimants in the New Orleans area. They were thrown out when courts ruled that the Corps of Engineers was immune from damages because of a 1928 law governing construction of flood control projects or because the corps was using its judgment authority as allowed under federal law.

A separate class action damage lawsuit filed against the Sewerage & Water Board is still pending in the Orleans Parish Civil District Court. That case involves only properties flooded by the 17th Street Canal and charges that the S&WB and the state of Louisiana improperly allowed the dredging of the canal before Katrina. That dredging and the improperly designed floodwall on the New Orleans side of the canal were responsible for the floodwall’s failure, the suit asserts.