The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday upheld most of the fines state regulators imposed on energy companies after the storms of 2011.
First it was Hurricane Irene. Then a heavy October snowstorm.
After long and widespread outages, state officials found Western Massachusetts Electric Company or WMECO, National Grid, and NSTAR violated their legal requirements to safely and promptly restore service. They hit the electric companies with fines totaling almost $25 million.
The utilities appealed, but the state’s Supreme Judicial Court largely agreed with regulators.
The court upheld all $2 million in fines levied against WMECO, agreeing that “‘unreasonably long response times’ for resolving priority calls raised ‘significant public safety concerns.'”
The justices did find the state’s Department of Public Utilities erred in some of the penalties. National Grid’s nearly $19 million fine was reduced by about a million. And half of NSTAR’s $4 million fine was sent back to the department to re-calculate.