A lawsuit that was filed against Tennessee-American Water Company in connection with a major water interruption in downtown Chattanooga and the North Shore on Sept. 19, 2019, is seeking to become a class action.

Shaun Christopher Bruce, Bonnie L. Schafer and Trinity Entertainment, LLC. are plaintiffs in the Circuit Court complaint against TAW.

The suit, filed by Chattanooga attorney Lee Davis, Van Bunch of Phoenix, Ariz., and three attorneys from the law office of Rod Jackson of Charleston, West Va., says tens of thousands of homes and businesses lost water service as the result of a blown water distribution main.

The suit says the prestressed concrete cylinder pipe led from TAW's main Citico water treatment plant to directly serve downtown and other areas.

It says it happened during a procedure to fix an existing leak that had been recognized as far back as 2014. It was also planned to create a permanent bypass of the problem line.

The work was attempted without any shutoff of the main delivery system, it was stated.

The suit says TAW had been notified that it needed more connections in order to maintain water service during a natural disaster, but it had not provided the connections.

It says approximately 76,000 customers were affected by the water pressure drop, including many businesses that were not able to operate. Hotels and restaurants were especially affected, the suit says.

The water company had no procedural plan in place to prevent such a widespread outage, it was stated.

Water was not fully restored until some 70 hours, according to the complaint.

It is claimed that TAW was guilty of "willful default or neglect" of its obligations to its customers.

A judge is being asked to allow the class action rather than having a number of separate cases on the same situation. 

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