Overbilled By DWP? Now You Can Claim Slice Of $67.5 Million Settlement

LOS ANGELES, CA — If you are one of the customers the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power overbilled to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, than you've been waiting for this day for a long time.

LA DWP customers will begin receiving information in the mail this week about how to recover compensation from an overbilling class-action settlement, the law firm that represented the plaintiffs said Monday. Some will received checks for just a few dollars while others will be compensated for the thousands of dollars they were overbilled. The department serves customers throughout Los Angeles and in parts of South Pasadena, Culver City and West Hollywood.

In December, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle gave preliminary approval to the settlement, which if finalized, will require LADWP to repay each customer 100 percent of what they were overcharged or damaged, a total that comes to roughly $67.5 million.

Some customers were not overcharged; others were overcharged by as little as $1 or as much as tens of thousands of dollars.

"Many customers don't have to do anything to receive a credit or refund," said attorney Jack Landskroner of Landskroner Grieco Merriman. "But the settlement also creates a claims process and gives customers the right to recover additional damages which resulted from overbilling."

Court-appointed independent monitor Paul Bender has said that nearly 800,000 customers were overbilled.

LGM said that all 2.4 million of LADWP's customers will get a notice of the proposed settlement in the mail and any that were overcharged will get details of what their recovery will be in a second letter.

"It doesn't matter if you were overbilled 15 cents or $15,000," Landskroner said. "The settlement requires that every penny be returned to consumers."

The settlement proposal is expected to be finalized at a July 7 court hearing.

Berle appointed Kurtzman Carlson Consultants as the case's independent claims administrator. More information on the settlement proposal can be found at http://www.ladwpbillingsettlement.com.

City News Service and Patch staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.