Bell Legal Group files 11-count class action complaint against SCANA
September 1, 2017
Georgetown attorney Ed Bell of Bell Legal Group LLC filed an 11-count class action complaint late Monday against SCANA Corp. and S.C. Electric & Gas for charging approximately 661,000 customers more than $1 billion in electricity charges to pay for two power plants that they abandoned last month.
“When power companies have so much control over our lives, they should not be able to benefit from their own misdeeds and negligence,” Bell said today. “It’s pretty simple. If you don’t pay your electric bill, what do they do? They cut you off. Now, we should cut them off from future payments for a failed project. They should be held to the same standards as their rate holders.”
According to the 21-page civil complaint (2017-CP-20-300) filed in the Fairfield County Court of Common Pleas, the companies “continue to bill its customers the increased charges leaving both defendants in possession and ownership of billions of dollars without fulfilling the promised services to the plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of other SCE&G customers.”
The complaint was filed on behalf of 10 named plaintiffs, all residents of Fairfield County. Other attorneys participating in the filing include state Sen. Vincent Sheheen of Savage, Royall and Sheheen LLP in Camden, Gregory M. Galvin of Galvin Law Group LLC in Bluffton, and former state Sen. Creighton B. Coleman of Coleman & Tolen LLC of Winnsboro.
The lawsuit alleges that the companies “knew years before abandoning the project that the project was not feasible; not subject to a detailed construction schedule; not a good investment of the ratepayer’s money; over budget; and failing.” It also accused the companies of making “misrepresentations, false statements and misstatements” to the state Public Service Commission about the project.
The complaint noted that while South Carolina families have among the highest power bills in the nation, in part because of the failed projects, that SCANA executives received more than $20 million in compensation. It also claimed the companies “refused to abandon the project at an earlier time because they received approximately 10.25 percent profit from all the monies it collected from the plaintiffs.”
The lawsuit alleges 11 causes of action, including waste, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence and fraud. It accused the companies of unjust enrichment for receiving profits from the project “since the project was not completed and the plaintiffs were provided with no value from the project.” The complaint also seeks to have the court freeze assets of the company related to the nuclear plant project.
Ed Bell, a nationally-prominent plaintiff’s attorney, is an owner of Garden & Gun magazine and is president of the Charleston School of Law. Bell, listed in The American Trial Lawyer Association’s prestigious top 100 Attorneys, is a member of an invitation-only group of the nation’s best trial lawyers known as the Inner Circle of Advocates.
