The case, Maldonado-González et al. v. Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Authority, centers on Morovis, a central Puerto Rican community where residents have lived without consistent water service for years. The plaintiffs — including Mayor Carmen Maldonado-González and several residents — claim PRASA and its executives ignored years of outages, some of which could have been resolved simply by turning on pumps and generators at the treatment plant.
The appellate judges found that this inaction, coupled with alleged sabotage of infrastructure for political reasons, could rise above negligence to “deliberate indifference” — a legal threshold that, if proven, would “shock the conscience” and violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee against arbitrary government action.
The panel noted that access to clean water is essential to life and health, drawing on Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division v. Craft (1978), which recognized utility service as a basic necessity of modern life. The court also cited United Nations resolutions recognizing access to water and sanitation as fundamental human rights, strengthening the case’s international resonance.
This decision marks one of the few times a U.S. federal appellate court has treated water service failures as a constitutional issue rather than administrative mismanagement. If upheld, it could set a precedent compelling utilities — both public and quasi-public — to maintain baseline access to essential services as part of their governance and accountability obligations.
For Puerto Rico, the ruling underscores longstanding gaps in infrastructure resilience and oversight. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had previously delivered a 2019 report recommending upgrades to the Morovis water system, yet PRASA took no action. Even as the municipality spent over $1 million on temporary measures such as water trucks and tanks, the authority continued billing residents for interrupted service.
The ruling stops short of declaring water a constitutional right outright but sends a clear message: government entities responsible for life-sustaining resources may be held constitutionally liable for prolonged neglect or deliberate inaction.
Legal experts view this decision as a potential shift in how the U.S. judiciary interprets basic infrastructure access. It may influence cases involving water crises in Flint, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; and Navajo Nation, where systemic failures in water delivery have raised similar questions of equity and due process.
The First Circuit remanded the case to determine whether Puerto Rican law establishes a protected property interest in water service, a finding that could influence how state and municipal utilities across the U.S. are held accountable under due process protections.
