Almost three years since the deadly Texas blackout of 2021, a panel of judges from the First Court of Appeals in Houston has ruled that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the crisis. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.
The decision seems likely to protect the companies from lawsuits filed against them after the blackout. It leaves the families of those who died unsure where next to seek justice.
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This week, Chief Justice Terry Adams issued the unanimous opinion of that panel that “Texas does not currently recognize a legal duty owed by wholesale power generators to retail customers to provide continuous electricity to the electric grid, and ultimately to the retail customers.”
The opinion states that big power generators “are now statutorily precluded by the legislature from having any direct relationship with retail customers of electricity.”
When you create an account with a utility, aren’t you creating a contract with them? What happened to contractual duty?
“Well, in the land of the fee, your level of freedom is directly proportional to your wealth, and the corporations have… an ungodly amount of wealth… but you… you’re a peasant… you understand?”
“Damn you Deal-breaker Jones! That wasn’t part of the deeeeeeal!!!”
I don’t think it works that way in Texas. There’s a layer of energy resellers who customers create an account with. Those resellers buy energy from the main utility companies and offer different plans. So, there’s no contract between consumer and generator.
Ok, then sue the middlemen for failing to withhold their side of the contract.
They can deal with recouping the costs from their shitty suppliers.
They’ll either pressure the suppliers into change, or go out of business handing the liability back to the suppliers.
Ah yes more middlemen with do nothing jobs ment to reduce corporate liability. The American dream.
that and how many of their customers can afford (or have the spare time) for a contract lawyer?
Wouldn’t the energy broker company want to sue the generator then? Honestly they probably have better lawyers than their customers, anyway.
Your contact is to pay for the power they provide. It is a regulated field so if something fails, then it is up to the regulators to cover the costs of they want more redundancy but 100 percent guarantees are not possible. Solar doesn’t provide all days and wind can be gone for weeks. Do you think you should be able to sue them for that?
Yes, because they should have energy storage for renewables, such as molten salt, gravity, synthetic methane, and/or electrical batteries, etc