A panel of judges has said that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the 2021 blackout. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.

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.”

  • @EatYouWell
    -20•5 months ago

    Many southern states aren’t equipped to deal with snow and such, because it doesn’t usually happen. It doesn’t make sense to buy and maintain plows and salt trucks for the one day every 5 years that enough slow falls for it to be necessary. Plus, people only buy 3 season tires for the same reason.

    That’s like shitting on England because a bunch of people died in an 80F heat wave.

    • @RampageDon
      29•5 months ago

      Who cares about salting and plowing. No one is knocking on Texas for not having the same level of road maintenance as a northern state. If you have major power outages across the state any time there is a strong breeze you have an issue. Texas was literally asking for disaster relief aid to get power back to residents because it got a little too cold. After that, rather than fixing the problem they doubled down and had astronomical prices for power. Now on top of all of that the courts ruled power companies, a utility that is a necessity, don’t actually have to supply you with that necessity.

      So your comparison should be more that people in England died when it hit 80F because the water companies couldn’t handle the heat and water stopped being supplied. So yea if that happened everyone should be shitting on England.

    • Zorque
      18•5 months ago

      They specifically scrapped a system that would have prevented the freezes that have been regularly happening for the last several years.

      Sure, a freak storm that happens once a millennia is understandable… but if it starts happening on a regular basis, they’re at fault if they don’t account for it.