The Saga Continues

Last Friday I spent the better part of 6 hours waiting in the courthouse to speak to a judge so that my ex-husband would not be able to get our electricity/gas turned off.

My ex has been trying in earnest for the entire month of March to get our gas/electric turned off by taking his name off the account, and sticking me with his unpaid bill. First, I don't see how he has managed to get so far with MidAmerican Energy, and have the utility company do his bidding.

My ex is court ordered to pay an erroneous amount that my ex told (lied to) the judge about the amount owed each month on the gas/electric bill during our divorce trial. Since that time, he has continuously run up the monthly bill by making payments late, and he continuously breaks any and all the payment arrangements that I set up with MidAmerican Energy to try to keep our lights and heat on for my children's sake. So now the monthly bill is outrageously high, despite the increases from MidAmerican themselves.

Secondly, the MidAmerican bill is in HIS NAME ONLY. However, I have always been authorized on the account for the past 16 years or so. Just since March have MidAmerican Energy expressed that all of the sudden I am not authorized on this account. However, MidAmerican is hanging fluorescent green door notices of disconnection on my door, with a number to call to avoid disconnection. When I call that number, MidAmerican won't give me any information on that account because they say I am not authorized on that account. But MidAmerican still called MY home and informed my son Ryan that they would be turning the electric off- but they won't give ME that same info.

So I had to employ the utilities commission to intervene on my behalf to avoid the disconnection. They staved off MidAmerican for the past 3 weeks or so, but the utilities commission advised me on Friday that I had better get an attorney now because they could no longer protect me.

My divorce attorney's elderly father (95) has been in and out of the hospital for the past month or so, and my attorney has to go out of town to care for his father. So he is not really up to speed on my case. I called his office on Friday, and was informed that he might be back on Monday. But I couldn't take a chance with this problem, so I went down to the courthouse and parked my butt with my motion in hand until the judge agreed to see me.

Basically, the Judge agreed with me on the merits of my problem with MidAmerican Energy, but he thought I was trying to take action against the wrong party, at first. He said that in order to get the disconnect postponed until we can figure out the legality of my ex's claim, that I had to get an injunction against MidAmerican to stop the disconnection proceedings.

Once I get the injunction against MidAmerican to stop disconnection, then I need to proceed with contempt action against my ex for failing to follow the Decree, or allowing the situation to inflame out of the context of the Decree, to the detriment of his family. Also, I don't think he can legally take his name off the bill as long as he is court ordered to pay the bill.

I don't think he can take his name off the bill and stick me with the $2,000 bill just because he doesn't want to pay it. That would be just like if I were to go down to MidAmerican and tell them that I want my $2,000 bill put into my neighbors name because I don't want to pay it. I told MidAmerican that I would gladly put the bill in MY name under a ZERO balance, but they weren't willing to do this.

BTW- My attorney and I and just about everybody that I've talked to about this agrees to about 99.9% that my ex has bought a new house and that's the main reason he is so desperate to get his name off this account so he can get service at his new place.

20/20 Tooooo Bad, Brad :0( Soooo Sad

Brash

P.S. If you don't hear from me for awhile, it probably means I didn't get the injunction in time!