This one goes straight into my “weirdlaw” file:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has become the second state high court to uphold a “nontraditional stray voltage” jury award, ruling that a power company breached its duty to control it.
Farmers across the country have been filing suit over so-called stray voltage for years, claiming that electrical discharges adversely affect the health of their dairy herds.
This despite an apparent lack of scientific proof of causation. Utilities say such verdicts could require them to “rewire rural Wisconson.”
And that’s just what the utility’s appellate co-counsel, Tom Armstrong of Milwaukee’s Quarles & Brady, fears. “The court’s decision undermines the public service commission’s findings and its ability to establish uniform standards,” he said. “There is no method to test what the level of ground current is that would affect a dairy cow, so you’re left with no standards.”
Chuck DeNardo, principal engineer for the utility company, was clearly frustrated by the verdict.
The Hoffmanns “implied that the effects came from earth currents coming up from the cable, but they showed us no measurements of exposure,” he said.
Read the whole mystifying tale here from The National Law Journal.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has become the second state high court to uphold a “nontraditional stray voltage” jury award, ruling that a power company breached its duty to control it.
Farmers across the country have been filing suit over so-called stray voltage for years, claiming that electrical discharges adversely affect the health of their dairy herds.
This despite an apparent lack of scientific proof of causation. Utilities say such verdicts could require them to “rewire rural Wisconson.”
And that’s just what the utility’s appellate co-counsel, Tom Armstrong of Milwaukee’s Quarles & Brady, fears. “The court’s decision undermines the public service commission’s findings and its ability to establish uniform standards,” he said. “There is no method to test what the level of ground current is that would affect a dairy cow, so you’re left with no standards.”
Chuck DeNardo, principal engineer for the utility company, was clearly frustrated by the verdict.
The Hoffmanns “implied that the effects came from earth currents coming up from the cable, but they showed us no measurements of exposure,” he said.
Read the whole mystifying tale here from The National Law Journal.
This one goes straight into my “weirdlaw” file:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has become the second state high court to uphold a “nontraditional stray voltage” jury award, ruling that a power company breached its duty to control it.
Farmers across the country have been filing suit over so-called stray voltage for years, claiming that electrical discharges adversely affect the health of their dairy herds.
This despite an apparent lack of scientific proof of causation. Utilities say such verdicts could require them to “rewire rural Wisconson.”
And that’s just what the utility’s appellate co-counsel, Tom Armstrong of Milwaukee’s Quarles & Brady, fears. “The court’s decision undermines the public service commission’s findings and its ability to establish uniform standards,” he said. “There is no method to test what the level of ground current is that would affect a dairy cow, so you’re left with no standards.”
Chuck DeNardo, principal engineer for the utility company, was clearly frustrated by the verdict.
The Hoffmanns “implied that the effects came from earth currents coming up from the cable, but they showed us no measurements of exposure,” he said.
Read the whole mystifying tale here from The National Law Journal.
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