His alarm line was unplugged for 19 years, but Verizon kept billing. Now, this RI lawyer is suing.

The state Supreme Court has, in effect, turned the juice back on in a lawsuit brought by lawyer Ronald J. Resmini against Verizon in a billing dispute involving a home security line that, it turns out, had been inoperable.

For 19 years.

“Even though they were no longer providing the service they still billed monthly,” Resmini’s personal lawyer Charles Garabedian said Monday of Verizon’s actions.

Case revolves around a security line going to a demolished building

It all started well enough between Resmini and Verizon.

In January 1989, Resmini contracted with Verizon to install an alarm security line connecting his Barrington home directly to the town police station on County Road. The alarm line would alert the police in the event of a break-in.

Eleven years went by. Then, in 2001, the Barrington police station was demolished (the department had moved to a new location) and the security line was “automatically terminated,” said Garabedian.

The problem was, said Garabedian, Verizon never told Resmini.

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The company just kept billing him every month for the line, he said.

For two decades.

Some $204 a month toward the end.

Resmini didn’t learn of the problem until December 2020, when a private security company representative told him the plug had been pulled on his home alarm system with the demolition of the old police station.

Resmini says Verizon 'knowingly' misrepresented that the line was in working order

Garabedian said Resmini “tried to work this out with Verizon but it was like trying to push a rock up a hill.”

He filed suit against Verizon in Superior Court in June 2021.

In court papers, Resmini alleged Verizon had failed to notify him that the security line had been disconnected and had “knowingly fraudulently misrepresented” that the line was in good working order.

In its motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Verizon argued it had never disconnected the service and had only done so on April 9, 2021 at Resmini’s request.

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Therefore, Verizon contended in court papers, because the telephone line “remained active” until Resmini requested it be deactivated, “he could neither prove that Verizon’s representations were false nor that Verizon breached any contractual relationship with him.”

Case goes from Superior to Supreme Court and back

Superior Court Judge David Cruise heard Verizon’s motion to dismiss on Jan. 12, 2022, and noted that another element could be in play: whether the statute of limitations had run out on the case.

In his bench decision dismissing Resmini’s complaint, Cruise said that “to assess whether the statute of limitations has run, this court will have to look at the evidence. And based upon that, the court is going to grant defendant’s motion to dismiss.”

In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Resmini argued that Cruise’s decision was entirely vague and failed to identify the specific evidence he was basing his decision on to dismiss.

And last month, the Supreme Court ordered the case back to the Superior Court for another review.

Who is responsible for telling the other the phone line doesn't work?

Said the high court: “It is clear to us that there were issues of material fact that should have precluded the hearing justice from granting summary judgment.”

“The first and most basic bone of contention between the parties is whether the terms of the parties’ contract charged Verizon or plaintiff with the obligation to exercise diligence in monitoring the continued operability of the telephone line.”

In other words: who was responsible for notifying the other party that the line wasn't operable?

Another contested issue, the high court said, is “when exactly the service line terminated and when the Barrington Police Station was demolished.”

One Verizon employee had stated in her affidavit that the line remained active until 2021, but Resmini said in his affidavit that it should have automatically terminated “sometime in the early 2000s” with the demolition of the old police building. (The Barrington Preservation Society reports the building was demolished in 2001.)

“These conflicting statements in the parties’ affidavits reflect another genuinely disputed issue of material fact,” the high court said. “For these reasons, it is our opinion that the hearing justice erred in granting Verizon’s motion to dismiss.”

Lawyer Matthew S. Prunk, who argued the case for Verizon before the Supreme Court, did not return a telephone call or email placed to his office.

Garabedian said Verizon’s argument that Resmini was responsible for ensuring the line was operable was absurd: “This is a mega powerful corporation that’s not being receptive to the needs of the consumer. It is not the consumers' job to ensure the system is still operable.”

Contact Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI lawyer's security line was inoperable. Verizon kept billing him.