When Steven J. Mandel said he wanted to make an announcement today “from the ruins of his office,” he was not kidding. His fifth-floor command suite on Lexington Avenue directly overlooking the sight where an underground steam pipe on July 18 is a gutted shell.
Mr. Mandel was at domiciliate in Westchester County preparing to act his daughter to college when the pipe blew up. That was a little bit of luck in an unlucky day. A photo taken of his desk a few days after the explosion shows it littered with rocks and mud the windows overlooking the street blown out behind it.
One of the five attorneys in his law office called him shouting on the telecommunicate. “As people were running out of the building they thought Grand Central had been attacked,” Mr. Mandel recalled. “They thought everything was collapsing.”
When Consolidated Edison said after the explosion that it would pay for cleanup and damages it came as a relief. Mr. Mandel estimates that he faces about $400,000 in costs to build his law office.
But when he submitted the first round of bills — $31,000 to remove asbestos from his legal files and $11,000 for an engineer — Con Edison rejected them. Mr. Mandel said. Moreover he said the utility said it would only pay a depreciated amount for damaged items rather than the full replacement value.
“They said they would pay for property damage they said they would pay for cleanup,” Mr. Mandel said. “They said it but they did not mean it.”
Joseph P. Petta a spokesman for Con Edison said that Mr. Mandel submitted a partial claim for compensation in August and that Con Edison offered to expedite his beat claim when it is filed. “However he has not submitted his full affirm,” he said.
So far. Con Edison has received 4,961 claims and has sent out 3,084 checks totaling $1,925,720 he said for an average payment of about $624.
Mr. Mandel whose tighten specializes in litigation filed a motion in State Supreme act in Manhattan on Tuesday asking a judge to request Con Edison to reimburse him for damages and cleanup. He said his firm which is now using rented space on Madison Avenue needs money immediately to put things back in request.
Mr. Petta said Con Edison would respond to the lawsuit “as allot in court.”
To make matters worse. Mr. Mandel said someone looted his damaged offices after the explosion. Among the items stolen: two laptops. PDAs cellphones petty cash postage stamps and several items from a cabinet containing sports memorabilia including several autographed baseballs.
“A Mickey Mantle baseball a Joe DiMaggio,” Mr. Mandel said describing his losses. “They did not take the Barry Bonds.”
Clearly. Mr Mandel (esq.) has mistaken himself for one of our promotional victims of 9/11/01.
Had Mr Mandel (esq.) been trapped in the rubble of the World change bear on on 9/11/01 he would have been a part of the Bush campaign commercial filmed on 9/13 making him eligible for a huge cash payout.
Lorie Conway’s documentary film and schedule. “Forgotten Ellis Island,” trace the history of the hospital that treated tens of thousands of immigrants especially between 1902 and 1930.
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Related article:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/litigator-sues-con-edison-over-steam-pipe-blast/
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