Consolidated Edison Co., the mammoth public utility that serves the New York City region, is facing a rather formidable opponent in a local personal injury lawsuit.
Jeanine Pirro, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, accused Con Ed and the City of Rye of negligence, in a complaint filed on Jan. 8 in Westchester Supreme Court.
“Defendants were negligent, careless, and reckless,” the complaint states, “in failing to warn Ms. Pirro of [a] dangerous condition.”
Pirro, 75, has close legal ties to Westchester, as a former county court judge and district attorney from 1991 to 2005. She also has hosted the Judge Jeanine Pirro show on The CW and Justice with Judge Jeanine on Fox News.
She has been an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, and last May the president named her as the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
The D.C. prosecutorial position is considered one of the most powerful in the nation because of its location at the seat of the federal government and for the types of civil and criminal cases that often are of national significance. She recently announced, for instance, a criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell.
On Aug. 2, she was confirmed as the full U.S. attorney.
Weeks later, around 1:45 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 28, Pirro, 75, was injured near the intersection of Purchase Street and Library Place, in Rye, according to the lawsuit.
She claims she was walking on the roadway, tripped over a large wooden block, and sustained “bruises and contusions to the head, eye, face and shoulder areas, together with pain, discomfort and limitation of movement.”
She was confined to bed, required medical treatment, and “continues to experience pain and suffering, inconvenience, loss of enjoyment of life, and economic damages.”
Con Ed had been working near the intersection and failed the leave the roadway in a safe condition, according to the complaint. The city knew about the dangerous condition, but failed to remedy it within a reasonable time.
The complaint does not say why Pirro was walking on the roadway. She owns a house about a mile away, and the scene is near City Hall and the Rye public library.
She is demanding unspecified monetary damages.
Pirro is represented by her former husband, White Plains attorney Albert J. Pirro Jr., who also has a connection to President Trump. He was pardoned on conspiracy and tax evasion charges five years ago, on the last day of the president’s first term in office.
The lawsuit was filed as a verified complaint, whereby a plaintiff affirms the accusations as true, to the best of her knowledge, under penalty of perjury. In this case, Albert Pirro attested to the truthfulness of the accusations, based on his review of records and conversations with Jeanine Pirro, and because “plaintiff is not in the county in which I maintain my office.”
Con Ed spokesman Allan Drury said the company does not comment on pending litigation. The Rye law department did not reply to message asking for its response to the allegations.
