Nov022009
Cable TV is essential, court rules
Filed under General by david brooks at 9:49 am
A couple of people have sent me notes about this Telegraph story from Friday - NH Supreme Court rules cable TV is an essential utility - because when writing about my travails with the digital broadcast transition I’ve noted my cable-less status (except for Internet; Comcast provides my broadband). Apparently the fact that I can’t watch “Mythbusters” is now a court-recognized diability! </exaggeration>
The ruling, if you don’t want to click through, says landlords can’t shut off cable in a rent dispute because cable is now sometimes used for telephone service, and courts have long said that the telephone is an “essential utility” and therefore can’t be touched by landlords. The weird thing is that the ruling doesn’t require a tenant to actually use their cable for telephony; it provides a blanket dispensation, so to speak.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:50 pm
“The weird thing is that the ruling doesn’t require a tenant to actually use their cable for telephony”
The weird thing is expecting that the landlord will be able to tell one way or the other whether or not the tenant is using their cable for telephony.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:33 am
As part of a court hearing, the tenant could be required to provide a bill showing that the cable includes telephone. That would be a complicated extra step, however.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:53 am
You've already demonstrated your contempt for poor people, and the indignity of the whole process doesn't seem to bother you.
Perhaps it is also beyond you to imagine that someone else might be paying for their phone service, perhaps a loved one who wants to keep in touch with their family.
How nice of you to even suggest that it would be worth clogging the court system further at taxpayer expense, so that a landlord can take pointless revenge against someone who is down on their luck.