A class action lawsuit against the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and National Grid, which manages LIPA’s grid, is expected to be filed Tuesday, claiming breach of contract, gross negligence and fraud for the utility’s response to Sandy-related outages, according to multiple reports.
Two Nassau county customers have already joined the lawsuit, reported CBS New York.
“We’re bringing a class action because I believe somewhere between 750,000 and 1 million people have been one way or another damaged by the ineptitude of this organization,” attorney Ken Mollins told CBS.
Critics say LIPA, which serve customers in Long Island as well as Queens, has responded slowly to the thousands that lost power due to Superstorm Sandy.
As of Tuesday, 14,000 LIPA customers outside of flood areas and 39,000 within, including 26,600 in the Rockaway Peninsula, are still without power.
Customers are not the only ones mad at local utility companies.
On Monday, Governor Cuomo said he wanted to launch an investigation of them, and that he believes they were “unprepared “ and “non-communicative” in their response to the storm.
In a speech this morning to the Association for a Better New York, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said that “we need to strengthen our energy structure.”
Along with improving protocol, erecting structures around power plants and substations, and upgrading infrastructure, Quinn suggested that in neighborhoods prone to heavy winds, overhead power lines should be buried underground.
