NEW ORLEANS — Like thousands of New Orleans property owners before him, Anthony Marullo has been fighting the Sewerage & Water Board for months over what he says are erroneous water bills.
But unlike other people frustrated by the agency’s admitted and well-known billing problems, Marullo has a five-figure dispute and has gone to court to seek a correction.
In a request for injunction filed in Orleans Parish Civil Court filed this week Marullo claims the S&WB has over-billed him by more than $50,000 on two rental properties with 23 units.
Marullo, a developer and major property owner, said the utility forwarded his outstanding bills to a collection agency without proper notification. He said he only found out about the collections effort because it substantially lowered his credit rating and hampered a business project for which he was seeking funding.
“As a result of the defendant’s actions, Petitioner, Mr. Marullo’s credit score dropped from roughly a 750 to approximately 500,” his attorney stated in his petition. “As Mr. Marullo is also on the board of a bank, the S&WB’s actions are causing irreparable harm to his reputation and consideration for future membership.”
Wholesale billing mistakes are nothing new for the S&WB. As WWL-TV exposed in its long-running “Down the Drain” investigative series, the agency has admitted software glitches, personnel shortages and over-reliance on estimated meter readings for many of the problems, with many mistakes going back to at least 2017.
At a series of City Council hearings, the agency at one point admitted it had a backlog of more than 5,000 customer billing complaints. While the agency has pledged to do a better job, complaints continue to stack up.
In his petition for a permanent injunction, Marullo is asking the court to halt collection efforts and declare the bills as erroneous.
The S&WB responded with this written statement:
“The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans wants to work with our customers who have a past due accounts. Shutting off services and sending our customers to collection agencies are our options of last resort,” the statement reads. “While the Board does not comment on pending litigation, final bills that are not paid within 30 days of due date will be turned over to a collection agency. Every effort is made to notify customers, by phone and mail, via the information we have on record.”
Marullo noted that he continued to make “good faith” payments toward his water bills and initiated a complaint, but the S&WB “violated its own administrative procedures” by sending his bills to a collection agency without notice.
The request for injunction is scheduled for a hearing Friday.
