A lawsuit filed Friday in V.I. District Court seeks a total of $39 million in damages against the V.I. Water and Power Authority, its CEO Karl Knight and smart meter company Itron, alleging the utility’s wildly unreliable billing system is violating customers’ civil rights.
The suit is brought by Elsa Beatty, Nelson Uzzell, Kerry Harrigan, Jeff Konowal, Carol Stanley and HealthQuest LLC, which operates the Caribbean Kidney Centers under Dr. Walter Gardiner. They are represented by attorney Terri Griffiths.
The complaint alleges due process violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law that allows individuals to sue state and local officials for violating their constitutional or statutory rights.
It outlines a litany of concerns over wildly fluctuating bills and no effective way to reliably appeal or dispute them, either to WAPA or the Public Services Commission, because WAPA is largely unresponsive and the PSC complaint process is merely informal, it alleges.
The suit notes that despite long-standing problems with the meters that Itron installed in 2015, WAPA nonetheless awarded the company a four-year, $30 million contract in February to replace the failed system that was also badly damaged in the 2017 hurricanes. As a result, the utility has been estimating some bills with wildly erratic results, it says.
In Konowal’s case, his bill jumped from an average of $160 a month for his one-bedroom apartment without air conditioning to $3,726 in April, followed by a bill for $1,409 in May, according to the complaint. All have been marked as estimated since November 2023, it said.
As a vocal critic of WAPA’s frequent outages on social media, Konowal “has a strong belief” that the “extraordinary” bills are retaliation for his public comments and posts, the complaint alleges.
Konowal filed a complaint with the PSC on April 30 and another on May 27 and was told by a commission employee to pay $160 until WAPA resolved the issue, it says. On June 13, he received notice that his power would be disconnected if he didn’t pay $4,903.65, prompting him to file a third complaint with the PSC on June 24, according to the complaint.
“To state that he is emotionally and physically ill because he is afraid to use power and fears his power may be shut off because he cannot pay a $4,903.65 power bill — is an epitome of an understatement,” the suit states.
For Harrigan, the problems began when his usual $400 to $500 bill jumped to more than $800 in June 2024, then doubled to $1,639 the following month, according to the complaint. After multiple trips to WAPA and filing complaints with the PSC, he received a credit for $401.64 in January, “which pales in comparison to his overcharges,” it says. In June, despite installing a solar system with battery backup last October that covers 80% of his house, Harrigan received a bill for $1,148.02 — more than double his average bill before going off the grid.
On July 9, Harrigan filed yet another complaint with the PSC but its offices had no power because of a WAPA outage, so he was unable to get a docket number, the complaint states. The “process is futile,” anyway, it says, because an amendment to Title 30, Section 23 of the V.I. Code that grants the PSC the power to investigate complaints is not mandatory, and the commission regards the process as “informal.”
“It is an epitome of an understatement to [say] they are distraught,” the complaint says of Harrigan and his family.
For the Caribbean Kidney Center, erratic water and power bills “obviously not based on actual usage, are crippling,” the complaint states. Currently, its St. Croix facility has an outstanding water bill of $125,000 after the charges went from an average of $1,500 a month before the 2017 hurricanes, then began to wildly fluctuate, and have averaged $4,000 a month in 2025, it says.
While “WAPA insisted CKC had a leak on its side of the meter,” none was found, according to the complaint. “Several meetings have been held or have been scheduled and were not attended by WAPA representatives. All these meetings or scheduled meetings were intended to resolve the issues. They remain unresolved,” it says.
“All the Plaintiffs have complained to WAPA representatives to no avail. They have also filed ‘informal complaints’ with the PSC representatives. If they do receive credit, it pales in comparison to the overcharge. There is no method to confirm that their bills are for actual usage, when it is obvious that they are not,” the complaint states.
Moreover, as admitted in sworn testimony by WAPA’s former executive directors, current CEO Knight and other WAPA officials, “the overbilling is caused by Itron’s defective meters and their component parts, which is solely in Defendants’ control,” it says. “Itron’s breach of the duty of care has caused Plaintiffs’ damages, including loss of funds, stress, anxiety, and physical ailments through no fault of their own.”
The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and pain and suffering damages of $10 million and punitive damages of $29 million against Itron and Knight in his individual capacity, alleging that by awarding Itron yet another contract, the CEO “reflects a reckless disregard for the plight of WAPA’s ratepayers, including Plaintiffs.”
Without a sizable punitive damages award, “Itron, the finished product manufacturer and seller, will continue to sell ‘smart meters’ with defective component parts, to be installed into the U.S. Virgin Islands’ electrical grid and attached to Plaintiffs’ homes and Knight will continue to intentionally disregard the foreseeable consequences,” the complaint states.
WAPA had not responded to the complaint as of late Friday afternoon.
St. Croix Source
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