Houston residents file $100 million class-action petition against CenterPoint over prolonged Hurricane Beryl power outages

Marilyn Lane’s adopted daughter, 11-year-old Christiana, listens to the radio on July 16, 2024. Her family had been without power for more than a week after Hurricane Beryl.

Three Hurricane Beryl-related lawsuits were filed in Harris County this week against CenterPoint Energy, including a pair of class-action petitions seeking more than $100 million apiece, in response to prolonged power outages associated with the storm as well as a fallen power line that caused "life-changing injuries" to a Houston man.

Behind the class-action lawsuits are a pair of high-profile Houston attorneys – former mayoral and city council candidate Tony Buzbee and Michael Fertitta, the son of hospitality mogul and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta.

Buzbee filed his suit Monday on behalf of Berg Hospitality Group, which includes Killen's BBQ, Saltwater Grill and other popular restaurants in the Houston and Galveston areas. Michael Fertitta's law firm filed its petition Wednesday on behalf of area residents Delmy Flores, Erin Greaney and Peter Hawn.

All those plaintiffs say they lost electricity for 48 hours or more in the aftermath of the Category 1 hurricane that passed almost directly over Houston on July 8, resulting in lost wages and income as well as spoiled food they had been refrigerating or freezing. More than 2.2 million homes, schools and businesses – roughly 80% of the customers served by CenterPoint – lost electricity at the peak of the storm, and hundreds of thousands remained without power more than a week afterward.

"CenterPoint was negligent in the maintenance of its lines and equipment, properly investing in infrastructure, adequately preparing for the hurricane, and properly conducting power restoration operations," states the lawsuit filed on behalf of residents. "... CenterPoint failed its customers in a low-level Category 1 hurricane; it is terrifying to imagine the extent of power grid failure that would be caused by CenterPoint's ineptitudes should a Category 5 hurricane make landfall in the Greater Houston area."

CenterPoint declined to comment on the lawsuits, saying in an email Friday that is it the company's "approach not to comment on pending litigation."

A CenterPoint Energy crew works on a power line in Cypress, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.

The utility, which owns and operates electrical infrastructure in the Houston area and distributes power to much of the region, has faced mounting criticism from local and state officials in the aftermath of last week's hurricane. The Public Utility Commission of Texas has launched an investigation into CenterPoint's storm preparedness and response, and a special Texas Senate committee including Houston-area lawmakers has been formed to address the matter.

Among the 22 storm-related deaths that have been confirmed in the Houston area, the widespread power outages during a summer heat wave contributed to more than half of those fatalities, according to local medical examiner's offices.

One of the lawsuits filed this week claims a Houston man was severely injured on July 11 when a tree-damaged power line fell on him at his Lakewood Forest home. Carlos Ruvalcaba suffered second- and third-degree burns, has required multiple surgeries and is coping with depression, according to the lawsuit, which seeks more than $1 million in damages.

The suit alleges CenterPoint was negligent in failing to properly inspect and maintain its power lines as well as trees and other vegetation around those lines, along with failing to properly warn Ruvalcaba about dangerous conditions, among other claims.

Damage from Hurricane Beryl in Clute, Texas.

"(CenterPoint) acted with flagrant and malicious disregard of (Ruvalcaba's) health and safety," the lawsuit states. "(CenterPoint was) constructively and subjectively aware of the extreme risk posed by the conditions which caused (Ruvalcaba's) injury, but did nothing to rectify them."

Both of the class-action petitions describe CenterPoint as a highly profitable monopoly in the region and accuse the company of fraud, saying it made false representations to customers and did not adequately communicate about outages and restoration times. They cited the absence of an online outage map when the storm hit, which prompted Houston-area residents to use the map feature on the Whataburger app to figure out which parts of the region were most impacted, and say the map CenterPoint subsequently launched contained inaccuracies.

CenterPoint had previously removed an outage map from its website in May after a deadly derecho windstorm knocked out power to more than 900,000 customers in the Houston area.

The lawsuit filed by Buzbee, on behalf of the local restaurants, also says they are resorting to legal action because "government thus far has woefully failed to force CenterPoint to do what any reasonable entity in its position would and should do."

"Of course, if a member of the proposed class fails to pay its bill on time, CenterPoint will disconnect and refuse to provide electricity," the petition also states. "Yet, when CenterPoint negligently fails to provide power, even though it has promised to do so and has a legal obligation to do so, it figuratively shrugs its shoulders, claims ignorance, and blames its failures on the weather or other external forces, claiming it had no idea or clue that the event causing the disruption would be so bad or could wreak such havoc.

"The members of the proposed class have had enough. If the proposed class members were to conduct their businesses in the manner that CenterPoint does, they would quickly be out of business."