Seattle City Light faces possible lawsuit that could include thousands of customers

Seattle City Light is facing a possible class action lawsuit over the way it bills people for electricity.

An electric bill hundreds of dollars higher than normal prompted the new lawsuit against City Light.

The complaint filed August 21 claims City Light's practice of estimating people's electrical use has led to wildly incorrect bills. The utility started using software in 2016 to estimate how much people use in lieu of actual meter readings for each building.

Terrell Marshall Law Group has filed a class action complaint.

"People have been getting outrageous electric bills," said attorney Ari Brown. "Mr. Dean, the class representative in this case, had bills that were maybe $50 or $70 a month and suddenly he got a bill for $1,000."

They're suing on behalf of Dean, a renter, and potentially other customers.

"Basically everybody who got a bill based on estimates, because it appears to us that there is no time that Seattle City Light was justified in using those estimates, they just didn't follow the law," Brown said.

If the class action status is approved by the courts, then the case and any restitution could apply to thousands of people. City Light has about 450,000 electricity customers.

The city of Seattle would not comment on the practice of estimating people's energy use, but continues to use the software that enables it to make estimates. The city attorney's office said it's reviewing the lawsuit’s claims and will defend the city in court.

A judge will decide whether the case applies just to one customer or the thousands who have received estimated bills in the past four years.