PSEG Long Island, judge reach resolution of lawsuit faulting utility for home fire

PSEG Long Island and Federal District Court Justice Gary Brown have reached a confidential resolution to Brown’s 2020 lawsuit alleging that the utility operator’s negligence led to a fire that destroyed his family home.

Terms of the resolution were not disclosed in a state court filing, and Brown’s lawyer, John McEntee, said he could not release the terms. LIPA, which owns the utility and employs PSEG under contract, didn't immediately comment.

“There was a resolution,” McEntee confirmed, calling it “mutually acceptable,” but declining further comment. Brown in his initial filing had sought $515,000 in uninsured costs tied to rebuilding his home. 

Resolution of the case came after years of relative inactivity in the 2019 matter, and suggestion by McEntee that the utility had been slow to respond to discovery.

As Newsday reported in June, Brown, a former federal prosecutor, had repeatedly sought access to documents, equipment and utility workers over the course of the litigation, but PSEG’s outside attorney objected to the requests and delayed scheduled depositions. Brown testified a utility worker had told him the 30-year old transformer adjacent to his Suffolk County home had been “obsolete and insufficient” for its intended purpose. The transformer was destroyed before Brown could inspect it.

For most PSEG ratepayers, the claims process can be trying. An estimated 15% of the 2,400 customers who file claims each year are successful, Newsday has previously reported.

Figures provided to Newsday this week indicate there were 1,294 claims filed against the utility this year through the end of October, including 13 that went through the court system. Around $2.25 million in settlements was paid out to claims in court, while another $2.146 million was paid out to those who filed claims directly with PSEG, for a total of $4.4 million thus far this year.

In 2023, $566,088 was paid out in claims through a court and $4.6 million through the PSEG claims process. The largest year for claims overall was 2020, after Tropical Storm Isaias. Some 25,509 claims were filed that year, all but 65 of which went directly through the PSEG claims process. Litigated claims have dropped steadily from the 98 that were filed in 2014, the year PSEG took over management of the grid, when a total of $452,035 was paid out.

Overall since 2014, 46,106 claims have been filed and a total of $25.9 million paid out — about $14.6 million through the PSEG claims process and about $11.3 million through the courts.

One customer who experienced frustration with the administrative process and satisfaction from the courts was Baldwin ratepayer Marian Goldstein. who in 2018 won a small claims court victory against the utility following a power surge incident that destroyed appliances in her home. On Thursday, Goldstein recalled the process of trying to alert PSEG of a branch leaning on wires in her neighborhood, and her lack of success in filing a claim after a power surge destroyed what she said was $7,000 worth of  home equipment. Ultimately, she won a verdict of $5,000 plus interest in small claims court.

“You never do forget it,” she said. “The process was just horrible.” Accounts of her issues with the claims process prompted a LIPA trustee to order a full review of the process.

Among dozens of active and past cases in State Supreme Court is one filed by Robert Doveala on Oct 31. He was walking on Drew Drive in St. James when he allegedly stepped onto the manhole cover of an underground utility vault on a customer's lawn, “fell into the opening and sustained serious injury.” He seeks an undisclosed amount.

Stephen Katz, a homeowner on Dune Road in East Quogue, experienced a fire at the home allegedly “due to a short in an underground cable” and his insurance company is suing for $611,470 in damages tied to PSEG’s alleged “carelessness, recklessness and negligence.”

LIPA and PSEG don't comment on pending litigation, a spokeswoman said.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.