The family of Donike Gocaj, who fell into an open Con Edison manhole at East 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue on May 18 and died underground, filed a civil suit this week alleging the utility had prior notice the cover was defective and deployed no barriers after a truck dislodged it.

The family of Donike Gocaj, the 56-year-old woman who fell into an open Con Edison manhole near the corner of East 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue on May 18 and died underground, filed a civil suit against the utility this week, alleging it had received prior complaints about the manhole cover's condition and failed to barricade the opening after a truck knocked it loose.

Gocaj's son, Armando Gocaj, and her domestic partner, Jashar "Jack" Kameraj, are the named plaintiffs, represented by attorney Diana Carnemolla. The complaint states that on May 18 — when Gocaj parked near the intersection and plummeted roughly 10 feet into the opening — the site was unprotected: no cones, no signs, no barriers of any kind.

Con Edison acknowledged in May that a multi-axle truck drove over the manhole and dislodged the cover approximately 12 minutes before Gocaj fell in. That window — a live 10-foot drop in a busy Midtown block, no response deployed — sits at the center of the lawsuit. In a statement issued this week, a company spokesperson said Con Edison extends its condolences to Gocaj's family but cannot comment on the specific allegations while litigation is pending.

Gocaj fell into what the medical examiner later determined to be a superheated space: she died from scald burns, heat inhalation, and blunt force trauma. Kameraj was with her and witnessed the fall. According to the civil complaint, bystanders formed a human chain in an attempt to reach her, without success. Kameraj is seeking relief for the trauma of watching the incident unfold and failing to save her; Armando Gocaj is seeking compensation for his mother's death. The dollar amount sought is unspecified in the filing.

"They want answers. They want prevention," Carnemolla told Gothamist, which first reported the suit on July 17. "They want to make certain that something is done, that Con Edison owns the responsibility to what happened and then makes change, so that no other family suffers like they're suffering."

The lawsuit's core allegation — that Con Edison had received complaints about this specific manhole cover before the incident — puts the utility's infrastructure maintenance record under formal legal scrutiny for the first time since Gocaj's death. Con Edison is a regulated utility overseen by the state Public Service Commission and bears legal responsibility for the condition of the underground infrastructure it owns across the city. The complaint does not name the city as a defendant. How courts weigh the 12-minute gap between dislodgment and the fall, and the prior-complaints allegation, will shape what accountability looks like for the family of a woman who died screaming that she was dying, while bystanders stood at the edge of the hole above her.