Entergy New Orleans' class certification hearing postponed to April 26

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, March 21 - Entergy New Orleans, Inc. was granted a postponement of the hearing on a request to certify two classes in the company's Chapter 11 case for customers who have claims for losses in connection with overcharges for electricity, according to a Tuesday filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The hearing has been continued to April 26 from March 29.

Entergy New Orleans had asked the court to dismiss the request or to postpone the hearing indefinitely.

The parties requesting the class certification include C.S. Gordon, Jr., on behalf of New Zion Baptist Church; J. Michael Malec, Darryl Malek-Wiley, Willie Webb, Jr. and Maison St. Charles, LLC, or the Gordon plaintiffs; and Thomas P. Lowenburg, Martin Adamo, Vern K. Baxter, Philip D. Carter, Bernard Gordon, Leonard Levine, Ivory S. Madison, Donetta Dunn Miller and Quality Inn Maison St. Charles, or the Lowenburg plaintiffs.

According to the company's motion to dismiss the certification request, the request for certification of classes is not associated with any pending adversary proceeding or contested matter.

In addition, Entergy New Orleans said the plaintiffs refused to continue the March 29 hearing on the certification request for longer than a week, leaving the company with no opportunity to conduct class-related discovery "in a complex matter that has been pending for seven years."

According to the motion to dismiss, the Gordon and Lowenburg plaintiffs have a pending adversary proceeding that attempts to find the company a "single business enterprise," but the adversary proceeding is not brought as a class action, and the certification motion neither relates specifically to, nor is brought in, the pending adversary proceeding.

In addition, Entergy said the bar date for filing a proof of claim has not yet passed and neither group has filed a proof of claim.

Entergy New Orleans provides electric and natural gas service to customers in New Orleans and is the smallest of Entergy Corp.'s five utility companies. It filed for Chapter 11 on Sept. 23. Its case number is 05-17697.

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