ERCOT sued over 2 deaths in storm
Hypothermia cited in Acres Homes cases
Doyle Austin’s grandson last Tuesday found the 95-year-old at his residence in Acres Homes, cold and gasping for air.
They walked around until his breathing improved, and he rested. His daughter tried and failed to revive him later that night, and he died of hypothermia.
Austin’s family detailed the struggles he experienced on the last day of his life in a lawsuit filed this week, one of the first in Harris County after the winter storm that knocked out power for millions of Texans and left both the healthy and infirm shivering from plummeting temperatures in their homes.
Several civil lawsuits, all against the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and various local energy providers, allege that the organizations were negligent in preventing and responding to an energy disaster stemming from the catastrophic weather event.
By failing to properly protect infrastructure from the elements and failing to inform residents of the dangers to come, the groups caused medical harm and even deaths, including that of Doyle and 86-year-old Acres Homes-area resident Earlie Baylock, attorneys contend in separate suits.
“Ms. Baylock died because (the) grid wasn’t a priority, and the energy provider made decisions based on profits,” her estate’s lawsuit reads. “She deserved much better.”
Lawyers in both Baylock and Austin’s cases claim that ERCOT, which manages 90 percent of the state’s electrical load through a deregulated market, failed to implement recommendations given after winter storms in 1989 and 2011 similarly resulted in widespread losses of power through rolling blackouts. Without properly winterized infrastructure, cold weather-related failures occurred
amid increased demand, according to the lawsuits.
“In 1989 and 2011, we had ice storms that put CenterPoint and the big energy companies on notice that they had a problem,” said Larry Taylor, an attorney representing Doyle’s estate. “The fact that they failed to address those issues affected all of us.”
ERCOT communications manager Leslie Sopko said the organization has not yet reviewed both pieces of litigation in full.
“This is a tragedy. Our thoughts are with all Texans who have and are suffering due to this past week,” she said.
CenterPoint Energy declined to comment on pending litigation after being named in Austin’s case. NRG Energy Inc., declined to comment on Baylock’s case. Stream Gas & Electric Ltd., also named in the Baylock estate’s lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.
Taylor, the attorney who is also a family friend of Doyle, said the 95-year-old was a family man who played baseball in the Negro Leagues.
He hopes Doyle’s case addresses and investigates energy availability in communities of color and rural communities, which have been disproportionately affected by disasters in Houston.
Both Doyle and Baylock lived in Acres Homes, a historically Black neighborhood.
“We want to make sure there was not anything done that might have put those individuals in harm’s way,” Taylor said. “Those infrastructures are not necessarily the most updated and the most attention is not paid to urban and rural communities.”
Mobility issues forced Baylock to remain at her residence amid 16-degree weather, attorney Tony Buzbee said in the lawsuit brought by her two stepgranddaughters.
She experienced pre-death conscious pain, suffering and mental anguish as “she sat there and slowly died of hypothermia,” the lawsuit alleges.
In the hours before her death, Baylock shivered. She mumbled and slurred her speech. She breathed shallowly and moved clumsily. She was drowsy and had difficulty with her memory. Buzbee is seeking the estate more than $100,000,000 in the case.
It remains to be seen whether the estates will be successful in even pursuing monetary damages from ERCOT.
The private nonprofit corporation overseen by the Texas Legislature and the Public Utility Commission has sovereign immunity, a well-established legal principle that protects governmental agencies from lawsuits.
The Texas Supreme Court is expected to rule this year on a case between Dallas utility Panda Power and ERCOT that could strip the Texas grid operator of its sovereign immunity, leaving it open to lawsuits.