Laserfiche WebLink
■ , <br />h' <br />BERNICK and lifson <br />p Q O r c S S I U N A i_ A s 5 O C J A' <br />Ms. Jennifer Watts <br />August 13, 1991 <br />Page 3 <br />Mr. O'Rourke at the third full paragraph of page two of his <br />opinion is correct in stating that the ultimate question in this <br />issue is the allocation of the "burden"'. The company apparently <br />believes that it is the subscriber that has the capacity to <br />determine whether the problem is related to the company's <br />equipment or some other cause. In some extreme situations a <br />subscriber may know that it is the company's equipment at fault <br />(blown-up convertors, cut wires, etc.). However, in the vast <br />number of cases, it would be virtually impossible for a <br />subscriber to determine the nature of the disruption to the cable <br />programming. Therefore, pursuant to the company's position, you <br />have a subscriber who must notify the company that they are not <br />receiving cable service, must (if the simple over the phone walk­ <br />through procedures reveal nothing) request a company <br />representative to come to the home to check the cable thereby <br />incurring potential liability of a Twenty Five dollar charge, all <br />without ever knowing, until its too lace, that it was something <br />other than a cable problem. The Federal law does not require <br />such entrapment of subscribers, and the Franchise forbids it. <br />Mr. O'Rourke is further incorrect in his statement that Paragraph <br />(3) clearly allocates the burden to the subscriber. As <br />previously stated, that paragraph only allocates the burden to <br />the suoscriber if a two prong test is met: <br />If Grantee's property is dair ad; and <br />2)The damage was caused by the subscriber. <br />This test is clearly not met <br />representative eventually finds out <br />television set which was broken. <br />if the company service <br />that it was a subscriber's <br />Mr. O'Rourke is correct when he states that we are talking about <br />a contract here (which is also a local law) . As a result, we <br />must rely on the clear meaning of the words to identify the <br />obligations of the parties and the intent of the parties as <br />expressed in the clear words of the contract. <br />It is clear from the language of the contract that service <br />requests were to be performed by the cable company at no charge <br />to subscribers regardless of whether the provider of the ser^'ice <br />ultimately repaired Grantee's own property, found no problem, or <br />found a problem elsewhere. Further, while rates for providing <br />cable programming services over the cable system were <br />deregulated, customer service requirements in franchises were