Little Rock Wastewater will offer to refund a woman for about three of the 14 years she had been paying for sewer services but not receiving them, the utility's governing body decided Wednesday.
Pamela Bradley had been paying a sewer bill for services to her home at 8509 Community Road since 2000. When she had an overflow problem earlier this year, she found out that she wasn't actually hooked up to the city's system. Instead, her home had been serviced by a septic tank.
She contacted Little Rock Wastewater, which offered to use its workers to correct the overflow, fill in the septic tank with concrete and connect her to the public lines. Bradley rejected that offer and the two more that followed. None of the utility's offers included a refund for the full years of payments that were made.
Wastewater attorney Carolyn Witherspoon told committee members Wednesday that a utility ordinance states customers will only be refunded up to one year of incorrectly charged payments. Still, the utility offered Bradley $1,427 in March -- an amount that covered the past three years of payments, Witherspoon said.
Bradley's attorney Sylvester Smith called the offer insufficient in a letter he sent the utility in April.
Smith requested that the Little Rock Sanitary Sewer Committee authorize the utility to refund the full 14 years of payments, plus interest and attorney fees -- a total of $13,769.61.
Smith wrote in the letter that the 14 years of payments totaled about $9,000, though the utility's finance department estimated the payments totaled about $6,078. The utility doesn't keep payment history dating back to 2000, so account officials had to use averages to determine the amount.
"Under Arkansas law, municipal public institutions enjoy sovereign immunity for their tortious acts. However, the immunity does not give the utility free license to perpetrate acts of fraud or theft on the public," Smith wrote, adding that Bradley could seek remedy in civil court for breach of contract, bad faith and unjust enrichment.
Smith referred to a recent billing error at Central Arkansas Water in which about 2,000 customers were wrongly charged late fees at an average of $3.26 per customer earlier this year. Smith said the water agency took the overbilling seriously, and asked that the wastewater utility do the same in Bradley's case.
Wastewater officials said Wednesday that they aren't sure why Bradley's home had been billed for sewer services even though it wasn't hooked up to the mains.
Sewer committee Vice Chairman Richard Mays Jr. suggested offering a good-faith reimbursement past the one-year repayment the ordinance calls for to prevent unfavorable publicity.
"I think it would be a public issue if they decided they want to try to sue us," Mays said. "I'm not saying give them $13,000 here ... but I'm just looking from a public perception standpoint."
The committee unanimously voted to offer Bradley $1,500 in exchange for signing a waiver agreeing not to sue. This will be the final offer, the committee said.
"I think we are anxious to not create ill will," committee member Pat Miller said.
Ward 5 City Director Lance Hines, who serves as a liaison between the sewer committee and the Board of Directors, asked the utility's staff to determine how it can be more proactive by figuring out which homes aren't hooked up to the sewer system but are being charged.
Officials said the matter comes up at least once a year.
Metro on 07/17/2014