Eversource and United Illuminating agreed to drop a lawsuit against Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority on Wednesday, likely ending a legal battle that saw the departure of the state’s top utilities regulator.
The lawsuit, filed last January, accused former PURA Chair Marissa Gillett of wielding near-total control over the authority and skirting state laws by appointing herself as the presiding officer in hundreds of matters involving the utilities over a five-year period.
It was one of two cases brought by the utilities alleging ethical violations and other procedural errors by Gillett during her tenure at PURA. The other lawsuit, an appeal of a rate case from two gas utilities, was decided in the companies’ favor last November.
Gillett stepped down in October, citing the personal toll that she said the allegations had on her and her family.
Since then, Gillett has been replaced by a new chair, Thomas Wiehl, as well as a slate of three other new commissioners appointed by Gov. Ned Lamont. In a joint filing asking a judge to dismiss the case on Wednesday, attorneys for both PURA and the utilities said the new board had agreed take steps to rectify problems alleged in the lawsuit.
The request still needs to be approved by Hartford Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Stewart.
“This is an important resolution that allows us and the state to move forward, recognizing that previous practices by the agency broke the law,” Jamie Ratliff, a spokesperson for Eversource, said in a statement. “A constructive, transparent and accountable relationship with our regulators will benefit customers and the State of Connecticut, providing a genuine platform to tackle the difficult issues surrounding energy reliability and affordability for our customers.”
Representatives for both PURA and Attorney General William Tong, whose office defended the agency in the lawsuit, declined to comment on Thursday.
PURA had already conceded that a number of practices during Gillett’s tenure were illegal, including her decision to appoint herself as the presiding officer over cases. In addition, a judge last year referred two attorneys representing the agency to an ethics committee to determine whether they had misled the court about Gillett’s deletion of her personal phone records, which had come up during the lawsuit filed by the gas companies.
A United Illuminating spokesperson did not immediately offer comment on the request for dismisal. UI is owned by Avangrid, which also owns the two gas companies involved in that other lawsuit.
In addition to PURA and Gillett, the joint Eversource-UI lawsuit named former commissioners Jack Betkowski and Michael Caron as defendents, along with Vice Chair David Arconti, who joined the board in 2024.
Among the stipulations laid out in the motion for dismisal were the requirement that a panel of commissioners meet to issue rulings on all “substantive” motions and appoint a presiding officer to oversee cases. In addition, the authority will no longer issue rulings on motions under the signature of the executive secretary, who is not a voting member of the board.
Any minor motions that are decided by a single commissioner or hearing officer can be appealed to a panel of all five commissioners, according to the stipulations. In addition, all votes must be recorded and include the name of the hearing officer, presiding officer and members of the panel.
Tensions between the utilities and PURA have died down since Lamont’s appointment of the new board members. Lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to confirm all four appointments earlier this month.
