WORCESTER — A lawsuit filed by several customers against Peterson Oil Service Inc. of Worcester, that accuses the company of knowingly delivering the wrong mix of heating oil, was certified earlier this month as a class action lawsuit by a Worcester Superior Court judge.
In the lawsuit, customers allege that the company’s practices have affected more than 15,000 customers.
First filed in 2019, the lawsuit filed by nine customers accuses Peterson Oil, Howard Peterson Jr., Sharon Peterson and Kristen Peterson Halus, of promising ordinary heating oil and instead selling them fuel diluted with large quantities of biodiesel, a type of fuel that is derived from plants and animals as a clean-energy alternative to regular fuel.
The customers also allege that they had to buy more of it to generate the same amount of heat that normal heating oil would provide, and that the fuel caused heating equipment “to shut down” and damaged their heating systems.
The lawsuit was expanded Dec. 9 after the customers alleged that Peterson Oil’s practices impacted thousands of customers, likely over 15,000, which they allege is about 90% of the customers that Peterson Oil has serviced since 2012, when they first allegedly began using diluted biodiesel.
In a Wednesday interview with the Telegram & Gazette, Peterson Oil’s attorney Louis M. Ciavarra said that the company plans on appealing the court’s decision of certifying the lawsuit as a class action, as opposed to customers filing individual...
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