Lawsuits start to stack up against utility companies as West Side outage continues - WCHS

Lawsuits start to stack up against utility companies as West Side outage continues | WCHS

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — Marlene Elliot, who lives near 7th Avenue, has been dealing with a cold house and cold showers for six days - part of the ongoing gas outage on Charleston's West Side. On Tuesday afternoon, according to West Virginia American Water, Mountaineer Gas crews hit a water line causing her water to briefly go out and the street in front of her to flood.

“Water’s been gushing out there all evening, all night, all morning," she said. It takes them that long to get someone to fix it. And then they want another rate increase? I don’t understand this.”

She is collecting photos and videos and is hoping to take them to the Calwell Luce diTrapano Law Firm who has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the 1,100 people who have gone without gas. On Wednesday, Mountaineer Gas announced that so far, 250 homes have been restored.

Dante' diTrapano is one of the attorneys on the case. His office on Randolph Street was one of the businesses impacted by the outage. The lawsuit alleges that both Mountaineer Gas and West Virginia American Water were, among other things, negligent in what caused the outage and what has taken place since.

Mountaineer Gas has maintained since the beginning that a West Virginia American Water line burst and pierced their gas line flooding more than 40 miles of line.

diTrapano said from here their case will go before Judge Jennifer Bailey, but he does not expect a schedule to be established for this case until at least next year.

“The way a class action works you have one person who is the class representative, and then you ask the court, which is Judge Bailey in this instance, to certify a group of people which in this case would be a group of people who were involved in the outage, and so we think the number at least by the reports is somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500," he said.

No one needs to reach out to the law office to be included in the suit. If the court recognizes the people affected as a class, diTrapano said it will include all of them. The suit argues that because of the companies, people suffered damages of annoyance, inconvenience, out-of-pocket expenses and lost profits.

“What we want to do was make sure there was something in place to protect what their losses are which I think could be catastrophic in terms of furnaces and different appliances that may have been impacted to what I believe is a catastrophic event on the West Side," diTrapano said.

This is just one of the lawsuits out there now. On Wednesday, another class action was filed by Thomas Toliver and Bailes Glass Company against the two companies. This one argues that the companies should be prohibited from seeking a rate increase to cover costs from this outage.

Mountaineer Gas has a hearing coming up on November 28 at 9:30 a.m. for a rate increase the company filed in July for an infrastructure replacement and expansion program.

The PSC recently held public comment periods for West Virginia American Water's rate increase that is set to be ruled on by the end of the year.

As for Elliott, gas is now flowing to her house, but when they went to turn it on, workers found more water in her system. Now, she has to wait on plumbing before she can have a warm house or shower. She expressed her own frustrations about continuous rate increases.

"Where's our money going to?" she said. "It's certainly not going to fix the pipes. It's definitely going to shareholders and CEOs and everybody else but it's not going to maintenance like it's supposed to," she said.

Both companies declined to comment on ongoing litigation.