Background
Andrea and Cordell Potter sued Atmos Energy Corporation for negligence and gross negligence, alleging that leaks in their home’s interior gas piping caused health problems for them and their two children. After a contractor reported smelling gas in February 2022, Atmos responded that day, found leaking household piping, and shut off service. Service resumed after a plumber repaired roughly 25 leaks and the home passed a city inspection.
In September 2021, an unusually high meter reading had triggered an internal “Verify” review of the Potters’ account. During that review, Atmos determined that the September reading was erroneous and discovered that the same employee had also misread the meter in July. Atmos concluded that the Potters’ actual usage was consistent with their historical consumption and therefore did not escalate the matter to a Company Billing Investigation. The Potters nevertheless alleged that Atmos should have warned them about a leak and its health effects and should have tested their meter and interior piping.
The trial court granted Atmos’s hybrid traditional and no-evidence summary-judgment motion without specifying its grounds and entered a take-nothing judgment. The Potters appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Second Court of Appeals affirmed. Atmos’s Railroad Commission-approved tariff provided that, subject to exceptions not alleged here, Atmos was not liable for injuries resulting from gas after it passed the point of delivery at the exterior meter. Because the leaks occurred in piping inside the home, beyond that point, the tariff’s liability limitation barred recovery under the filed-rate doctrine.
The court also held that the negligence theories failed for lack of a legal duty. Under Texas law, a utility does not owe a negligence-based duty concerning a dangerous condition on a customer’s property without actual knowledge of that condition. The summary-judgment evidence showed that Atmos’s 2021 review concerned erroneous meter readings, not actual elevated consumption or a known gas leak, and the Potters produced no evidence raising a genuine fact issue on Atmos’s knowledge. Because no negligence duty existed, the gross-negligence claim also failed as a matter of law.
Key Takeaways
- A regulator-approved utility tariff can limit liability for personal injuries arising after gas passes the tariff-defined point of delivery.
- An anomalous meter reading did not establish actual knowledge of a leak where the evidence showed that the reading resulted from human error and actual consumption remained historically consistent.
- Without a legal duty supporting ordinary negligence, a related gross-negligence claim cannot survive.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates two independent barriers to claims against regulated gas utilities for conditions inside customers’ homes: enforceable tariff provisions and the requirement of actual knowledge before a utility owes a duty regarding a dangerous condition on customer property. It also shows that speculation about what an internal billing review might have revealed is insufficient to defeat summary judgment when the record establishes a benign explanation for the triggering meter reading.