Nachawati Law Group trial lawyers continue to lead the way in high-profile litigation to hold electrical transmission and utility companies accountable for wrongful death, injuries and other damages caused by 2021 Winter Storm Uri. Firm partner Ann Saucer was featured in news reports by KXAS Ch. 5 and the Dallas Morning News regarding continued efforts by a group of transmission and utility companies to avoid responsibility for their actions leading up to and during the widely predicted winter storm.
An earlier ruling by the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals found that lawsuits filed by more than 15,000 storm victims can proceed. The Supreme Court of Texas is set to hear oral arguments on February 19 after the defendants appealed that ruling.
At issue are erroneous statements by the defendants that rolling blackouts would be intermittent, said Saucer.
“That’s what they said they’d do,” she told KXAS. “That’s not what they did. Some people never lost power, and some people lost power for so long — for days — that they froze to death.”
Writes the Dallas Morning News:
The Fourteenth Court said the utility companies were entitled to dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims for negligence because Texas law does not impose common-law negligence duties associated with emergency power interruptions, ensuring adequate generation or warning of anticipated power outages.
But the court of appeals said that the tariff, which is essentially the state-law mandated contract between customers and the transmission and distribution companies, does allow for gross negligence and intentional nuisance claims.
More than 200 lawsuits, consolidated into multidistrict litigation before Harris County MDL Court Judge Sylvia Matthews, allege that mismanagement by companies including Dallas-based Oncor Electric Delivery, CenterPoint Energy in Houston and American Electric Power constituted an intentional nuisance.