Once, twice, three times a Beryl-related class action lawsuit related to CenterPoint’s failure to get the power back in a timely fashion.
Seen at I-10 and Sawyer
A firm representing 19 medical professionals and other business owners in Harris County filed a class action claim Monday against CenterPoint Energy, alleging the company’s response to Hurricane Beryl cost them millions of dollars.
The suit, the third class action brought against CenterPoint in the past week, was filed on behalf of beauty, health and wellness businesses in Harris County. The plaintiffs are suing for damages in excess of $100,000,000.
Representing the case are husband and wife duo Erica Rose and Charles Sanders of the personal injury practice Rose Sanders PLLC. Rose said they are not charging for their services, and have filed the case in the interest of bringing change to the Houston energy market.
“This is something I’m very passionate about,” Rose said Tuesday. “We’re not charging out clients anything up front. Many of the businesses we’re representing are run by women and other minorities and CenterPoint’s response to Beryl has left them in a pretty tough spot financially.”
At least three doctors and dentists are named as part of the suit. They argued CenterPoint’s failure to promptly restore service resulted in the loss of sensitive medical equipment and supplies. Property loss and other damages, the suit claimed, disproportionately impacted minority and women-owned businesses.
“This disruption likely will cause permanent irreparable harm to some of Houston’s most influential, devoted and successful business owners,” the plaintiffs’ original petition stated. “It had a disproportionate impact on doctors in the Asian community as well as other minority business owners and female doctors.”
The suit also claimed CenterPoint’s restoration efforts were hampered by logistical failures and mismanagement. The plaintiffs alleged company executives failed in their duty to adequately communicate with employees, and that a lack of clear guidance left many linemen waiting for hours or even days before they could begin repairs.
[…]
Rose and Sanders said they’ve been in communication with prominent Houston attorney and former mayoral candidate Tony Buzbee, who filed a similar case last week. Buzbee, who is representing restaurant owners impacted by the blackout, has worked informally with Sanders and Rose to direct clients to whichever case suits their business better, Rose said.
Another case was brought by Michael Fertitta, son of Rockets owner and Landry’s CEO Tilman Fertitta, representing Houston residents.
“Tony’s only doing restaurants, we’re focused more broadly on a larger class of businesses,” Rose said. “We send him any restaurants that contact us and he, likewise, reaches out if anyone contacts him that would be a better fit for our case.”
See here and here for the background. It’s nice that Rose and Sanders are working with Buzbee to make sure the right clients get to the right lawyers. Wouldn’t want to confuse things. What’s not so nice is that for the third straight article, not a single frickin’ lawyer or law professor is consulted to answer the basic questions about why these lawsuits are being filed as class action, what has to happen for them to be certified as class action (and what happens if they aren’t), what if any precedent exists for this type of lawsuit against a utility, and what the odds of success may be. We’re left to ponder it all for ourselves. On the plus side, we are told more of these lawsuits are coming, so there will be more opportunities to address those basic questions. Or not.
Charles: I am not a lawyer, but I have some familiarity with class action suits from my service on several Boards of Trustees. To get certified as a class action, the plaintiffs have to convince the presiding judge that the individual plaintiffs all represent the identical legal issues. This can take quite a while to litigate (like multiple years) and nothing goes forward on the lawsuit itself until the issue of class action is resolved. If class action status is denied, then each individual plaintiff has to pursue an independent lawsuit. There is no presumption that just because a group of plaintiffs have all filed a lawsuit, that they are necessarily a class.
In many cases, denial of class action status is the death knell for the litigation, given the cost of duplicating the litigation for each individual. I will leave it to an actual litigator to speculate on how quickly the local courts would be willing to act on this type of lawsuit. My own experience has been that much depends on how the presiding judge feels about the merits and significance of the case.
P.S. I suspect that the lawyers are keeping the types of clients segregated to maximize their chances of getting their group of clients accepted as a class.
In the words of Kenneth Fair from July 18th:
“I’m not sure how Buzbee” [OR ROSE SANDERS PLLC, FOR THAT MATTER] “…intends to get past this limitation of liability in CenterPoint’s tariff:
Company will make reasonable provisions to supply steady and continuous Delivery Service, but does not guarantee the Delivery Service against fluctuations or interruptions. Company will not be liable for any damages, whether direct or consequential, including, without limitation, loss of profits, loss of revenue, or loss of production capacity, occasioned by fluctuations or interruptions unless it be shown that Company has not made reasonable provision to supply steady and continuous Delivery Service, consistent with the Retail Customer’s class of service, and in the event of a failure to make such reasonable provisions, whether as a result of negligence or otherwise, Company’s liability shall be limited to the cost of necessary repairs of physical damage proximately caused by the service failure to those electrical delivery facilities of Retail Customer which were then equipped with the protective safeguards recommended or required by the then current edition of the National Electrical Code.
In other words, CenterPoint is not liable for any of your losses caused by a service outage except for possibly damage to your electrical equipment (wires, breaker box, meter, etc.).”
Point being, if citizens of Texas could hold Centerpoint accountable/liable for disruptions of service, we (along with the State of Texas, PUC, ERCOT, etc.) already would have after the Feb 2021 Winter Storm Uri fiasco. It’s clear the State has no appetite for holding them accountable, regardless of the recent meaningless bluster coming out of Abbott’s mouth…after he returned from his South Korea vacay.
CL, I’m sure Buzbee and others will try to attack CenterPoint over reasonableness of their maintenance and preparations. I agree with you that the ambulance chasers are unlikely to win if their goal isn’t just free publicity but you never know. Maybe if we collectively decide we’ve had enough and demand the PUC push them to do better in exchange for more funds for maintaining the grid parts they are responsible for?
I will point out once again that the ratepayers are the only visible means if support for CenterPoint, so when a bunch of people seek compensation from CP we ourselves will be paying it. I would love to see CP do a better job but I don’t know the best way to accomplish that.