By Suzanne Herel

PJM is planning an effort to identify discrepancies among its governing documents, an initiative prompted by a lawsuit that officials say could have harmed the RTO’s credit rating and increased its insurance costs.

At last week’s Markets and Reliability Committee meeting, General Counsel Vince Duane presented the first read on a problem statement to create a Tariff Harmonization Senior Task Force to review what he called “legal boilerplate” provisions regarding definitions, indemnification, limitation of liability and alternative dispute resolution procedures in the Tariff, Operating Agreement, Reliability Assurance Agreement and Manual 35.

“Sometimes they should be the same; sometimes they should be different,” he said.

Duane said the inconsistencies came to light when counsel examined the documents in connection with a lawsuit brought in 2008 by PPL electrician Marlin Yorty, who was severely burned while working at a substation on the Juniata-Conemaugh 500-kV transmission line.

In October 2013, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that PJM was not responsible for Yorty’s injuries because it was protected by a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tariff that superseded state law.

“We began looking at the provisions more carefully in the legal department and found inconsistencies and vulnerabilities,” Duane said.

Separately, the MRC approved non-substantive revisions to definitions in the Tariff, Operating Agreement, Reliability Assurance Agreement and Manual 35. The changes are intended to align the documents.