Family of 11-year-old who died after home lost power sues Texas utility
The family of an 11-year-old boy who died last week amid historic freezing temperatures in Texas is suing two power companies alleging they failed to take action that could’ve prevented his death.
Maria Pineda’s son Cristian died Tuesday in the family’s mobile home in Conroe, Texas. A lawyer representing the family filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit Saturday against the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and Entergy Corp.
The lawsuit, which was first reported by the Houston Chronicle, accuses the power providers of gross negligence and alleges they “put profits over the welfare of people” by ignoring recommendations to winterize the power grid and misleading customers about how long rolling blackouts would last.
“Despite having knowledge of the dire weather forecast for at least a week in advance, and the knowledge that the system was not prepared for more than a decade, ERCOT and Entergy failed to take any preemptory action that could have averted the crisis and were wholly unprepared to deal with the crisis at hand,” the lawsuit states.
Entergy, which also provides electricity in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, released a statement to USA TODAY saying: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life in our community. We are unable to comment due to pending litigation.”
The Electric Reliability Council said in a statement to ABC News that it had not yet reviewed the lawsuit. “Our thoughts are with all Texans who have and are suffering due to this past week,” the statement said.
The Pineda family was among more than 4 million customers who were left without electricity as winter weather pummeled Texas last week. They lost power and heat for two days as temperatures plummeted as low as 10 degrees in their area, the lawsuit states.
Cristian died while trying to stay warm under a pile of blankets with his 3-year-old brother, according to the lawsuit. The family found him unresponsive and called 911 while attempting CPR, the lawsuit said.
The Pineda family believes Cristian died as a result of hypothermia, but the cause of death and the results of his autopsy could take several weeks, the Houston Chronicle reported.
A GoFundMe set up to raise money to send Cristian’s body back to Honduras has raised more than $87,000. Cristian was born in Tela, Honduras, and immigrated to Texas in 2019 where he was reunited with his mother, Univision reported.
The lawsuit contends that the Electric Reliability Council caused customers to believe that the blackouts would only be temporary, which prevented them from properly preparing or leaving the area. “Accurate information might have saved Cristian Pineda’s young life,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit notes that the Electric Reliability Council ignored recommendations from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
The federal report, issued in the summer of 2011 after a winter storm caused rolling blackouts, found that state officials in 1989 – after another cold snap caused outages – “issued a number of recommendations aimed at improving winterization on the part of the generators.”
“Rather than invest in infrastructure to prepare for the known winter storms that would most certainly come and potentially leave people vulnerable without power, the providers instead chose to put profits over the welfare of people, and ERCOT allowed them to do so,” the lawsuit said.
Attorney Tony Buzbee told ABC News he is representing seven families whose relatives died during the cold snap.