Southern California Edison My daughter moved out of her apartment on Sept 1, 2010 and was charged for electric at this residence for several months while other tennants occuppied this residence, when in fact edison were to refu Internet

First of all it looks like you are getting this information from your daughter, and it is possible that she is not telling you everything.  Because you have not posted a lot of details and there are some things that just don't seem to go together.

First for this to happen not only would your daughters "cancellation" not have gone through but the new tenants would not have had to call to put service in their name.

When she canceled she should have been given a Cancellation Number that number could prove that she did in fact cancel on that date.  If she was never given this number then the service probably didn't get canceled, or at the very least she doesn't have any proof.

But even if it wasn't canceled did she have a forwarding order with the post office?  Because if the bill was still in her name the Post Office would have forwarded the monthly bills and she would realize that something was not correct.

It seems that she knew exactly when she should have gotten her deposit back.  When she didn't get her deposit refund in November did she follow up to find out why?   At the very least if she called, she would have found out it wasn't canceled and canceled it then.  This would have stopped any new bills at about 2 months and not let it go another 7-8 months.

I am not saying that SCE is correct in what they did, but unless there is a lot of information you didn't post it looks like your daughter could have done SEVERAL things many months ago to not let it get to the point of her electricity(at her new place?) cut off.  If she is that medically incapable to follow up with things like this then perhaps you do need to re-think about her living without assistance.

It may be too late but has she tried to file a complaint with the California Public Utility Commission.  They are the agency that oversees the utilities and will attempt to resolve customer complaints.