Texas generator company sues La. Dept. of Natural Resources

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By Anna Brown

A generator dealer with a location in Baton Rouge has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR). The Houston-based Generator Supercenter claims that LDNR mismanaged the emergency generator program organized in the wake of Hurricane Gustav.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the 19th Judicial District in Baton Rouge. The complaint alleges that the state violated its contract with Generator Supercenter when it refused to pay nearly $3.2 million for the 68 high-capacity generators it ordered from the company.

“After a competitor told the LDNR that Generator Supercenter did not have the ability to supply the generators, the state issued another purchase order for the same generators,” said Stephen Babcock of the Babcock Law Firm, LLC, the firm representing Generator Supercenter. “When Generator Supercenter did in fact provide the generators, the state started some world-class backpedaling that continues today.”

Louisiana launched the Essential Services Generator Initiative to deploy portable generators to essential service providers in hurricane-affected areas after Hurricane Gustav, when some portions of the state were expected to be without power for as long as two weeks. Governor Bobby Jindal announced that the Department of Natural Resources would be given approximately $20,000,000 to purchase and distribute 400 generators so that gas stations, pharmacies and grocery stores would have the power needed to serve residents. Generator Supercenter was one of five vendors awarded contracts under the program.

In response to the lawsuit, LDNR Communications Director Patrick Courreges e-mailed this statement to News 2:

“We respect the right of companies to petition the courts. However, this matter has gone before an independent government agency – the state Division of Administration, heard by both an administrative law judge and later by the Commissioner of Administration -- and was found not to have merit. This due process confirmed that the contract terms were honored.”

Babcock says that Generator Supercenter was required by law to submit its complaint to the State Purchasing Director and then the Commissioner of Administration before suit could be filed in state court.

“There was never a hearing, no evidence hearings were had and as a matter of fact, neither of those officials are attorneys, much less administrative law judges as falsely claimed by the DNR in their statement,” said Babcock

Babcock says that a failure to communicate landed LDNR with more generators than it needed. He says that LDNR is trying to find a way to get out of the contract. Babcock says his clients were the “unlucky victims” left with the $3.2 million tab.

“At its core, this dispute arose because LDNR was talking out of both sides of its mouth,” said Babcock. “While one LDNR official was telling my clients that they needed all the generators they had ordered whenever they could get them, another official was striking deals with another supplier for the same units on bad information regarding Generator Supercenters ability to perform.”

The case has been assigned to Judge Wilson Fields. No hearing dates have been set yet.

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