KEY POINTS:
The Muliaga family were sent at least 50 requests for power bill payment - from overdue notices to final disconnection warnings - in seven years, a court was told yesterday.
Senior Mercury Energy manager James Moulder yesterday told an Auckland Coroner's Court Folole Muliaga had opened an account with Mercury in June 2000.
Since then, the company had sent 24 warning notices, 14 automated telephone calls, eight urgent disconnection warning letters, and four final disconnection notices. The family had been disconnected twice, the first time for a day in April, 2004. Mrs Muliaga, 45, died from complications of morbid obesity on the floor of her Mangere Bridge home on May 29 last year.
Her death came about three hours after Mercury Energy contractors disconnected power to her home, disabling an oxygen machine she used up to 16 hours a day.
The family owed supplier Mercury Energy $168.40 at the time.
Mrs Muliaga suffered a number of obesity-related conditions, including heart arrhythmia, and liver congestion.
Her heart - at 800g - weighed twice that of a healthy person at the time of her death, and her body mass index, at 65, was also more than double that of a person considered to be obese.
Mr Moulder - then Mercury general manager - said the company had sent the Muliagas three letters prior to disconnection: an "urgent" notice on May 14, a final notice on May 21, and a last bill on May 23.
Though Mercury held lists of customers whose power should not be disconnected, which included the unwell, the company was never told of Mrs Muliaga's health problems.
Though Mercury sent out the disconnection orders, subcontractors such as Vircom - who disconnected the Muliagas' power - had the right to make decisions on site, he said.
"In the end, Vircom had, and has, the final say as to whether a disconnection takes place."
Other evidence presented to the court yesterday suggested Muliaga family members had only a vague understanding of the gravity of Mrs Muliaga's illness, and no idea of its clinical name.
Manukau police Senior Sergeant Cornelius Kluessien told Coroner Gordon Matenga of arriving at the Muliaga family home in Mangere Bridge to find Mr Muliaga sitting "in a distressed state" next to his dead wife.
But Mr Muliaga could only describe her conditions as "too much water, not enough air".
Mr Kluessien said the Muliaga children seemed just as unsure.
He said Mr Muliaga had initially told him the power had been disconnected because the family could not pay its bill.
The hearing continues today.
