A federal appeals court affirmed a lower court denial of class-ac...
A federal appeals court affirmed a lower court denial of class-action status to a telecom right-of-way suit against Entergy Corp. by Tex., La. and Miss. landowners. The 5th U.S. Appeals Court, New Orleans, was ruling on a case (04-41113)…
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in which the landowners claimed Entergy violated electric transmission easement agreements by leasing spare capacity on its fiber corporate network to 3rd-party telecom carriers. The appeals court agreed with the lower court’s ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show prosecution of individual suits would impose incompatible standards of conduct on the parties. It said at worst, Entergy might be found liable to some landowners but not others, forcing it to negotiate with the victors for the right to keep transmitting telecom services through their property. The court also said that because land and easement values vary widely, there’s no way to have a fair proxy formula for calculating damages owed to class members.