A Valparaiso woman filed a class-action lawsuit against NIPSCO Friday, alleging the utility’s lax vegetation management contributed to widespread power outages after severe storms on Aug. 11.
For Margaret Shragal, 77, according to the suit filed in Porter Superior Court, that meant delaying surgery for a fractured hip, scheduled for the day of the storms, which caused her “unnecessary and protracted pain and suffering.”
“NIPSCO is aware of the lawsuit filed related to the recent weather events and power outages,” a spokesperson for the utility said in an email to the Post-Tribune. “Safety and reliability are fundamental to how we operate. Our immediate focus remains on restoring service safely and as quickly as possible to customers impacted by this week’s weather events. We will address the specific allegations through the appropriate legal process.”
Officials with Northern Indiana Public Service Company have said that at peak, more than 60% of the utility’s customers were without electricity, making it one of the largest outage events in company history.
Three rounds of storms left around 317,000 customers without power by Thursday, according to NIPSCO’s website. The utility has said it expects 90% of its customers to have power restored by Tuesday, a week after the first round of storms, and the remaining customers to be online by Friday.
Attorney Kenneth J. Allen, whose firm is representing Shragal, said during a Friday news conference at his Chesterton office — which was operating on a generator because of the power outages and lacked air conditioning — that ice storms, tornadoes and other weather events are all predictable.
“It’s also foreseeable that trees and vegetation are going to come down,” he said. “That is as certain as the day is long.”
Every utility, including NIPSCO, has a vegetation management program, Allen said, “but instead of a vegetation management program, all NIPSCO has done is put out fires.”
Money that should have gone toward that plan, Allen said, instead was treated as extra value for shareholders. “That’s not right,” he added.
Allen said the class-action lawsuit, which he expected to enjoin more than 100,000 people, was not in any way about the utility’s union workers, who are out restoring power, but about how much of what happened could have been prevented.
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“We intend to hold NIPSCO accountable for its negligence,” he said, adding that it wasn’t just for the Aug. 11 storms, but for several rounds of severe weather that have battered the region — and the power grid — since the spring.
Otto Shragal, an attorney in Allen’s office and Margaret Shragal’s son, said NIPCO could have proactively followed guidelines set by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and trimmed trees and other vegetation regularly for the safety of the public.
Without that maintenance, Shragal said, “People get hurt, and the people of the region have been hurt in many ways. And it’s getting worse.”
Having a tree policy is fine, Shragal added, but not if the utility doesn’t follow the policy.
Margaret Shragal, Allen said, fractured her hip in a fall and was transported by air ambulance to a local hospital for surgery, but that surgery was delayed three days because of the widespread power outages.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been harmed since the Aug. 11 storms, Allen said, because of NIPSCO’s mismanagement and lack of preventative maintenance.
He and Otto Shragal noted the destruction, loss of wages and perishable food, and pushback for school start dates, among other results, since the Aug. 11 storm.
“She is emblematic,” Allen said of Margaret Shragal. “This time, it’s reached a crescendo.”
Margaret Shragal is requesting a jury trial and compensatory and punitive damages, according to the lawsuit.