By Brian Clark
WisBusiness.com Editor
Xcel Energy lost two cases handed down by the state Supreme Court today involving dairy farmers who said their herds were hurt by stray voltage from utility lines.
In a Marathon County decision, the high court ruling means farmer James Gumz and his family will soon collect $750,000 in damages and interest from Xcel, said attorney Scott Lawrence.
In the 4-3 decision, he said the justices ruled the statute of limitations hadn’t expired and that the utility was negligent. Xcel had appealed a circuit court jury decision to the high court.
“Utilities fight stray voltage cases because they don’t think there is credible science to support it,” he said. “But it is a pervasive problem in the dairy industry because they are using the earth as a circuit and that affects cows.”
In a second ruling, the court sent the case of farmers Ralph and Karline Schmidt back to circuit court in Clark County after ruling that Xcel was responsible for damage to their cows, attorney Andrea Niesen said.
The justices, in their 7-0 decision, said the statute of limitations in the case hadn’t expired.
Niesen called the case precedent-setting and argued that it will be important in future stray voltage cases.
She said utilities have been fighting “tooth and nail” against fixing problems in which “out-of-balance” electrical transmission systems transmit current into the ground and hurt cows.
“Basically, the court said the utilities have a common law responsibility to rectify these situations, even if the voltage measurement is less than one milliampere,” she said.
Brian Elwood, a spokesman for Xcel, said his company is reviewing the high court decisions.
“Other than that, we have no additional comments,” he said.
