http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/nyregion/24coned.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=5a7ad78c6af52c1a&hp&ex=1101272400&partner=homepageNearly a year after a woman was electrocuted while walking her dogs on a wet East Village street, Consolidated Edison has agreed to pay her family more than $6.2 million and to set up a $1 million scholarship fund in her name at Columbia University, where she was a doctoral student.
The settlement, announced late yesterday, ended months of negotiations between Con Edison and the family of the woman, Jodie S. Lane, who died the night of Jan. 16 after stepping on an electrified metal plate near a bakery on East 11th Street.
Ms. Lane's sudden death set off a firestorm of criticism of the utility that led to aggressive new safety rules and citywide inspections of electrical equipment that turned up hundreds of locations where the public was exposed to stray voltage.
Under the terms of the settlement, Con Edison will provide a $1 million fund at the Teachers College for scholarships and research in the clinical psychology department, where Ms. Lane, 30, was completing her degree. The Jodie Lane Fund - which will receive five annual installments of $200,000 each - will be established after legal proceedings are completed, probably early next year, said a spokesman for the college, Joe Levine.