McWaters v. FEMA was a class action lawsuit brought by survivors of Hurricane Katrina against the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its handling of recovery efforts, with particular regard to its administration of the emergency housing assistance program as provided for in the Stafford Act. This case raised both constitutional and sovereign immunity issues, the treatment of which are intertwined in the court's decision. In McWaters, the plaintiffs charged that FEMA had been so inept in its administration of the Stafford Act's temporary housing assistance program as to constitute an illegal denial of benefits accruing to them under the act. But while the federal trial court judge agreed that FEMA's actions hardly exemplified bureaucratic efficiency or even competence, he nonetheless ruled that FEMA was immune from suit under the Stafford Act's sovereign immunity provisions - but with one important exception. FEMA had summarily terminated housing assistance benefits (rental payments to motels in which displaced Gulf Coast residents were staying) without affording them a pre-termination due process opportunity to challenge such termination. FEMA asserted that it was under no such procedural obligation, since recipients had no property interest in the housing assistance benefit. Au contraire, the court ruled. Though plaintiffs had no right to receive rental assistance past their eligibility deadline, they did have a congressionally created property interest in entitlement to participation in the housing assistance program within the confines of those deadlines. As a result of this property interest, plaintiffs were also entitled to pre-termination due process to ensure that FEMA was making its termination decisions fairly and accurately. And since these due process rights are grounded in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, they trump the Stafford Act's assertion of sovereign immunity for all response and recovery actions FEMA undertook post-Hurricane Katrina. (Burton, The Constitutional Roots of All- Hazards Policy, Management, and Law, 2008, pp. 10-11)