On May 5, Bruce Saffran and Heidi Pashko, both residents of an apartment complex on Yellowstone Boulevard in Forest Hills, as well as about a dozen others, filed a civil complaint in Queens Superior Court against the city. In the complaint, they are demanding compensation for damages suffered as the result of an early morning storm, when their homes were flooded with up to four feet of stormwater and raw sewage, which came gurgling up from toilets and fixtures and rushing through front doors from the street.
   Saffran had all but given up on reclaiming his losses after receiving notification from City Comptroller William Thompson Jr.’s office that the city was not liable for the damages. That decision came after the Department of Environmental Protection, the agency responsible for managing the city’s water supply and wastewater systems, conducted an investigation into the flooding and determined it was not at fault.
   Saffran initially explored filing suit, but couldn’t find an attorney that would touch the case. However, a lawyer in Michigan happened to be reading online news reports of the situation and called Saffran. The attorney had won a number of similar lawsuits in his home state and was more than happy to participate in this case.
   “It was an amazing phone call,” Saffran said. “So out of the blue.”
   That attorney helped Saffran and other plaintiffs find a local lawyer, Oscar Michelen of Mineola, Long Island, to lead the effort.
   Michelen, in a phone interview, said the city’s drainage system should have been able to handle the amount of rain the area experienced during the storm, which was not so bad it should be considered “an act of God.”
   Queens, he continued, is much more prone to severe flooding events than the other boroughs, because the city hasn’t improved its infrastructure despite the density increase.
   The lawsuit states that the city knew, or should have known, that the system “was not properly repaired, maintained, operated, installed and designed.”
   Added Michelen, “Every time it rains heavily, these guys hear toilets gurgling. It’s obviously very disturbing.”
   The attorneys for the plaintiffs are seeking to make this a class action suit, in which case all the 810 residents of Forest Hills, Fresh Meadows and Woodside who filed damages with the city would be able to sign on and get compensated should they win. If a judge does not allow that to proceed, only the names currently signed to the suit would be able to receive damages.
   Michelen said people are calling his office every day to sign on, with the current number over two dozen.
   The plaintiffs, said Saffran, are only asking to be reimbursed for what they lost in the storm, which started about 6 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2007. “We’re not looking at this as winning the litigation lotto,” he said.
   By the time the rain stopped, everything in Saffran’s apartment, from furniture to appliances to photos of his son growing up, was contaminated and had to be thrown away. It took four months before he and his family could return home.
   Pashko’s experience that day is similarly harrowing, and she too was kept out of her apartment for months, depending on the generosity of friends and neighbors.
   Saffran, once resigned to eating his losses, is now optimistic that the suit will succeed — particularly as the attorneys will not get paid unless they are successful. “They wouldn’t touch this unless they felt they had a chance, a good chance,” he said.
   Likewise, Pashko is hopeful, though she expects it will take years before the plaintiffs see any results.
   “If we didn’t think there was liability here, we wouldn’t proceed,” Michelen said.
   Mark Palomino, the head attorney for the city’s tort unit, stated that the department had yet to receive a formal copy of the complaint, but will review the matter when it does.