Electricity—The SCOTX Report

24-0213·Petition For Review

A rural electric cooperative holds an easement by estoppel over a ranch for its distribution line, based on an unrecorded writing by a prior owner, its detrimental reliance, and the purchaser's knowledge of the line.
But the cooperative's upgrade, which tripled the poles and nearly doubled the wires to serve a new customer and substation, exceeded the easement's scope as a matter of law, so the Court rendered judgment for the landowner on trespass.

24-0424·Mandamus

Winter Storm Uri plaintiffs' allegations that transmission and distribution utilities failed to prevent or mitigate the storm's freezing temperatures cannot support intentional nuisance, because the utilities were not the source of the alleged nuisance, and those claims must be dismissed with prejudice.
The plaintiffs' pleadings do not sufficiently allege gross negligence because they do not allege conscious indifference in light of the utilities' legal obligation to follow ERCOT load-shed orders and guidelines, but the plaintiffs must be given a chance to replead that claim.

24-0794·Petition For Review

The parties' 1984 pole-attachment agreement's "all laws" clause incorporates later-enacted statutes affecting either side's rights or obligations⁠—including PURA's rate-discrimination and rate-ceiling provisions⁠—regardless of whether the agreement itself technically "renews" each year.
The Public Utility Regulatory Act applies to this agreement, and CPS Energy's practice of invoicing Spectrum and AT&T at the same rate while collecting only from Spectrum violates the statute's ban on discriminatory pole-attachment pricing.

25-0742·Petition For Review

Whether 1927 utility easements granting the right to "construct, operate, patrol, maintain and repair" a single transmission line impliedly allow the utility to remove the line and rebuild it with taller steel monopoles and larger conductors, or whether, absent forward-looking reconstruction language, the utility is limited to the structures and design used in 1927.
Whether the court of appeals improperly relieved the utility of its summary-judgment burden to prove the project is reasonable and necessary by holding the landowners waived the issue.