Gillis v. Respond Power, LLC
This case arises from a deceptive scheme perpetrated by Defendant Respond Power LLC. Respond is an Electric Generation Supplier (EGS) in Pennsylvania that uniformly mis-portrays the contractual rates it can and will charge to consumers by omitting material facts and deceiving reasonable consumers as to the actual risks, costs, charges, and savings a reasonable consumer will realize (and should reasonably expect to realize) after switching from his or her local regulated electric utility to Respond.
These omissions led to consumer’s to believe they were protected from any future rate increases being greater than what they were being charged by their current utility, when in fact Respond would end up charging consumer’s up to 3x their previous regulated electric utility rate.
Respond ended up having their Motion to Dismiss Granted by the District Court but the case was then appealed to the Third Circuit. After briefing/argument was complete the Third Circuit released their opinion concluding that the District Court did not properly exercise its discretion in denying class certification. Therefore the Third Circuit vacated the District Courts order denying class certification and remand for further proceedings.