⚖️ Opening Statement
Your Honor, my name is Logan Martin Isaac. I own The Chapter House, a bookstore at 250 Broadalbin Street SW in Albany — a business I spent nearly a decade working toward.
Pacific Power is a regulated public utility. That status comes with obligations that exist precisely because customers have no alternative provider. This case is about whether those obligations mean anything.
In July 2025, I called Pacific Power to set up a future business account before my lease obligations began. I never received service. When I received a bill in September, I called to dispute it and the account was cancelled. I believed the matter to be resolved.
When I called in October to establish actual service, Pacific Power refused — citing that disputed balance. That refusal violates OAR 860-021-0335(5), which explicitly prohibits a regulated utility from conditioning new service on a balance incurred before the applicant was at the address. I was not at that address. Pacific Power left the meter running after another business vacated, billed me for electricity I neither requested nor received, and then used that bill to deny me service I had a legal right to receive.
On December 4, 2025 — Exhibit: audio with Justin, Jade — I recorded a call with Pacific Power in which their own employees confirmed they have no verifiable record of any agreement from the July call. They have no contract. They nonetheless referred the alleged debt to Bonneville Collections, which continued collection activity after my written dispute — a textbook violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(b) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
That collections entry appeared on my business credit report during the months I most needed access to capital. In fact, my bank denied my small business loan application. I was forced to sustain The Chapter House on personal savings during its critical opening months. I filed this complaint in January.
On March 2, 2026 — after Pacific Power had filed an answer to this complaint — they disconnected the meter. A neighboring business was forced to close for days. I have audio of their employee threatening to place me on a "dangerous customer list" for informing him that his employer appeared to be retaliating against me for asserting my legal rights — Exhibit: Audio with Joe.
The next day, I placed Pacific Power on notice that I was accruing damages at $200 per day for lost business and that further adverse action would be documented.
Your Honor, at every decision point, Pacific Power had a choice. They could have produced their evidence, but they told me I'd need a subpoena. They could have initiated service while the dispute was pending, as the law contemplates, but they refused. They could have refrained from collections activity on an undocumented, disputed debt, but they undermined my credit. And after this court accepted my complaint, they disconnected power to the address entirely — harming not just me but another business that had nothing to do with this dispute.
I am asking this court for judgment of $10,000 — the maximum this court may award. That figure accounts for the void balance, $1,000 in statutory FDCPA damages, documented business losses from the loan denial, and the court's equitable assessment of a regulated monopoly that chose escalation over compliance at every stage, including after this proceeding began.
Pacific Power is not a small actor that made an honest mistake. They are a multibillion-dollar utility with legal counsel and regulatory staff. They knew what the law required. This court's judgment is one of the few remedies available to a small business owner when a regulated monopoly decides the rules don't apply to them.
