Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against the owners and operators of Arizuma Country Estates connected to a five-week power outage during the summer of 2024.

The community is home to residents living in recreational vehicles and park model homes. The power outage started after an overloaded electrical panel caught fire on July 22, 2024, and “then persisted during one of the hottest periods of the year, exposing the affected residents to dangerous and inadequate living conditions,” according to a release from the AG’s office.
 
“This case is an alarming example of a park owners’ indifference to the health and safety of their residents,” Mayes said in the release.

“At a time when our state routinely faces record-breaking summer heat, landlords must be vigilant about their internal electrical systems. And most importantly, landlords cannot ignore their duty to provide alternative electricity especially when their own neglect has caused them to violate their contractual and statutory obligations to provide reliable electricity.”

The attorney general also alleges that, once the outage began, the defendants misled tenants about the progress of repairs and were responsible for delays of the pending repairs, without notifying the residents of those foreseeable delays.

The individual defendants involved in the operation of the park left the country for several weeks during the outage “and did not give onsite staff sufficient authority to resolve concerns from residents and from the electrician managing the repairs,” according to the release.

The lawsuit follows a power-related one filed last month against the owners and operators of Redwood Mobile Home Park in Tucson.

We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.