In Friedman v. Central Maine Power Company, No. 25-1578 (1st Cir. April 29, 2026) the plaintiff was a Maine resident who suffered from a rare and incurable form of blood cancer and a long-time customer of an electric utility that uses smart meters emitting radiofrequency signals to track electricity usage. After the utility received regulatory approval, it allowed customers to keep analog meters for an additional fee, citing health and safety concerns that had been raised but not resolved by the state public utilities commission. The resident, concerned that radiofrequency radiation might worsen his cancer symptoms, requested a waiver of the opt-out fee, supported by a letter from his oncologist. The utility denied the waiver, and after the resident refused to pay the fee, his electric service was disconnected.
The resident sued in the United States District Court for the District of Maine, alleging disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Fair Housing Act. He also claimed the fee constituted an unlawful surcharge under the ADA. The district court denied the utility’s initial motion to dismiss but, after discovery, granted summary judgment in favor of the utility. The district court limited the resident’s expert witnesses to general, not specific, causation testimony, and excluded the opinions of his treating physicians as untimely disclosed expert testimony. The court found a lack of admissible evidence connecting smart meter radiation to the resident’s health, and held the opt-out fee was not an unlawful surcharge.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. It held that, without timely, admissible expert evidence of specific causation linking the smart meter’s radiation to a non-speculative risk of harm to the resident’s health, the resident’s claims could not survive summary judgment. The court also held that the opt-out fee was not a discriminatory surcharge because waiver of the fee was not required under the ADA.