BENTONVILLE -- A lawsuit has been filed against the city concerning its billing for net metering solar customers.
Rogers attorney Joshua Mostyn and Fort Smith attorney W. Whitfield Hyman filed the lawsuit Friday in Benton County Circuit Court on behalf of Ethan Harris and a class of similarly situated net metering customers.
According to the complaint, net metering is measuring the difference between electricity supplied by an electric utility and the electricity generated by a net metering customer and fed back to the electric utility over the applicable billing period.
The lawsuit claims the proposed class is made up of 369 unique net metering customers from April 2018 to present.
They are suing for breach of contract, unjust enrichment and illegal exaction.
Bonnie Bridges, an associate attorney for Bentonville, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Harris lives in Bentonville and entered into a contract Oct. 18 with the city and became a net metering customer, according to the complaint. The contract is governed by the city's net metering ordinance.
The lawsuit claims the city had been systematically billing its net metering solar customers at an incorrect rate in violation of the net metering ordinance and individual contracts for at least five years. The lawsuit claims Harris and the class were given only 50% of their contracted value for the energy they produced.
Harris and the class produced solar energy for the city's electric utility department, which received benefit of the solar energy, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit claims the utility department was aware Harris and the class were providing solar energy with the expectation of being billed at the correct rate, and the department accepted the solar energy at an incorrect rate, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit is seeking unspecified monetary damages for full payment of the balance owed and for plaintiff's costs related to the lawsuit.
The case is assigned to Benton County Circuit Judge Doug Schrantz.