Victims’ suit:
Court allows case against PG&E to go forward.
Families of victims in the lethal Ghost Ship fire can sue Pacific Gas and Electric Co. for allegedly failing to monitor or shut down dangerous electric facilities in the Oakland warehouse, a Superior Court judge has ruled.
Thirty-six people died from smoke inhalation after being trapped in a blaze that erupted in December during an electronic music concert in a section of the Fruitvale District building that had been illegally converted into an artist collective. PG&E supplied electricity to the warehouse but said it couldn’t be held responsible for any power that had been redirected from a neighboring auto body shop, a registered tenant of the building, to the Ghost Ship.
But Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman refused to dismiss PG&E from the victims’ lawsuit Tuesday and said the utility could be liable if the plaintiffs can prove that company inspectors ignored signs of danger in electric supplies to the Ghost Ship.
The suit alleges that PG&E knew or should have known when its employees examined “smart meters” and sub-meters for the entire warehouse that “electrical supply and distribution systems were dangerous,” Seligman said.
He said the victims’ families can try to prove, as they have claimed, that PG&E knew or should have known about a “lifethreatening condition on the property” and had shown a “conscious disregard for the safety” of the occupants.
Frank Pitre, a lawyer for the families, said Thursday the ruling means PG&E can be held responsible for electrical hazards that contributed to the fire even if, as the utility contends, it did not supply transformers or any other electrical equipment to the Ghost Ship portion of the warehouse.
When PG&E inspectors went to the building and looked at the meters, Pitre said, “if they knew or should have known of electrical hazards, they had a duty to report them and to stop service until those electrical hazards were eliminated.”
In a statement, PG&E spokeswoman Tamar Sarkissian said, “We’ve seen no evidence to believe that our facilities were the cause of the fire. We’ve reviewed our records and over the last 10-plus years we have no reports of electric theft from this location or the adjacent premises. We’re fully cooperating with authorities as they investigate this tragic event.”
Victims’ families and survivors of the fire added PG&E in June to a damage suit against the building owner, manager and others connected to the property. They have also filed legal claims, precursors to a possible lawsuit, against Oakland, Alameda County and the state of California.
Prosecutors have filed involuntary-manslaughter charges against Derick Almena, the Ghost Ship’s founder and master tenant, and Max Harris, an assistant alleged to have planned the concert.
Federal investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire, which started in a kitchen area in the first floor of the warehouse. A tangle of electrical cords had brought power into the Ghost Ship through assorted holes and channels in the building.
The lawsuit alleged that Almena told Kai Ng, one of the building’s owners, in February 2015 that the electric supply system to the Ghost Ship was “in dire need of a total and immediate upgrade.” In October 2016, the suit said, Harris told Ng that the system “was terminal and was getting worse.”
At the same time, the suit said, PG&E was in a position to learn that the power delivery system was “dangerous, defective, out-of-code compliance, and an imminent threat to the health, safety and lives” of everyone in the building but had failed to do anything about it.