Power utility lawsuit stalled seven years as judge delays ruling on motions

A class action lawsuit filed in 2019 against the V.I. Water and Power Authority continues to languish in court, with a hearing cancelled this week because Superior Court Judge Alphonso Andrews Jr. has yet to rule on multiple pending motions.

Attorney Joseph DiRuzzo brought the case on behalf of ratepayer Jody Olson, seeking several remedies: a finding that WAPA is insolvent, a state of emergency declaration, and repayment of interest on customer deposits. A status conference had been scheduled for Friday, but Staff Master Joseph Gasper cancelled it Monday, saying the court must first address the proposed class definition and rule on motions before the parties can meaningfully meet.

Gasper ordered both sides to file a joint status report by November 20 instead. This mirrors a May cancellation for the identical reason. A joint status report filed that month showed that motions from 2024 and 2025 remain unresolved, with "class definition and notification" still outstanding.

The case experienced significant delays early on. WAPA did not respond to a motion for 659 days, from March 2020 to January 2022, later citing the pandemic as justification. Judge Harold Willocks rejected that explanation in a 2024 ruling, stating he was "dumbstruck by the Defendants' argument" and faulting WAPA for neither requesting a court extension nor providing any explanation for the lapse.

DiRuzzo's original complaint drew on a September 2019 letter from then-Delegate Stacey Plaskett, now governor-elect, to Governor Albert Bryan Jr. and then-Senate President Novelle Francis Jr. Plaskett wrote that WAPA "is effectively insolvent" and urged them to declare a state of emergency.

More than seven years on, WAPA's troubles persist. Rolling blackouts have affected the St. Thomas-St. John District, and St. Croix experienced an island-wide outage on Tuesday.

Plaskett, speaking Monday following her election, said she intends to issue a state of emergency order for WAPA on her first day as governor and will request federal assistance from the Department of Energy and the White House.

Bryan, the sitting governor, disagreed at his own press briefing the same day. He contended that a state of emergency declaration would not help because WAPA's challenge is not financial or technical but rather logistical: completing repairs and connecting generators already in place. "If declaring an emergency would do something, we would have done it," Bryan said.