Power Companies: Winter Storm Uri Lawsuits ‘Ruinous’ to Industry if Not Dismissed

Scores of Texas electric generators and distributors — CenterPoint, Luminant and NRG, to name a few — asked a Houston appeals court Friday to dismiss more than 230 lawsuits brought against them by more than 1,500 plaintiffs stemming from Winter Storm Uri two years ago because the cases are without legal merit and “upend the state’s electricity markets.”

In two separate mandamus petitions filed with the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston, lawyers for the power generators and electricity transmission and distribution utilities argue that Harris County District Judge Sylvia Matthews “clearly abused [her] discretion in allowing the cases to proceed.”