MARIETTA - An Alpharetta law firm is suing Cobb Electric Membership Corporation for an estimated $300 million. The lawsuit, filed Friday in Cobb Superior Court, seeks class-action status for all former customers of the electric co-operative dating back to its inception in 1939.

Cobb EMC "has failed to abide by terms of its own charter, which calls for repaying current and former customers from its excess earnings," according to a release from law firm Pierce, Gabriel & Parker, LLC.

Attorney Sam Pierce said former customers have no voting rights and can only seek repayment through the courts.

"Cobb EMC has withheld a lot of money and used it to avoid having to finance its operations," Pierce said.

According to the lawsuit, Cobb EMC "has implemented only one side of a revolving equity plan, the part that accumulates member-owned funds for use as capital, but not the counterbalancing part of such a plan that returns funds to former and long-term members on a revolving cycle of 10 to 20 years."

Attorney Chuck Gabriel said Cobb EMC has total assets of about $860 million, including about $300 million in excess earnings.

Cobb EMC's attorney Dwight Davis called the lawsuit "the kind of abusive litigation that gives abusive litigation a bad name."

"Lawsuits like this one have been uniformly rejected by every court that has ever considered them," Davis said. "We look forward to being vindicated in court, and when we are, we will seek to recover attorneys' fees and expenses from the plaintiffs."