Some who lost homes file suits against PG&E
Former San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan, his wife and a Sonoma County couple who escaped last month’s wildfires by jumping in their pool filed suit Tuesday against Pacific Gas and Electric Co., joining a growing number of North Bay homeowners accusing the utility of sparking the blazes.
The latest suits were filed Tuesday by a coalition of five law firms alleging that PG&E, through poor maintenance of its equipment and inadequate trimming of nearby trees, had a role in starting the Wine Country wildfires, even though the state’s official investigation has not pinpointed a cause.
The lawyers said Tuesday they would look into many issues that have come to light since the fires erupted on Oct. 8, including PG&E’s use of devices that automatically try to restart power lines after they shut down, even if they are lying on the ground. And the attorneys rejected PG&E’s recent claim that electrical lines owned and installed by someone else may have sparked the most destructive of the fires, the Tubbs Fire, which burned entire neighborhoods of Santa Rosa.
“We can’t rely on their statement that it’s someone else’s wires,” said attorney Frank Pitre, with Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, at a Tuesday morning news conference in Burlingame. “We want to see.”
Jordan and his wife owned a weekend home on Mark West Springs Road in Santa Rosa. They fled the night of Oct. 8 after seeing flames in the distance and warning their neighbors. Jordan, who served as mayor from 1992 to 1996, was scheduled to attend Tuesday’s news conference but had a last-minute conflict, Pitre said.
Gregory Wilson, who lost his home just outside Santa Rosa, told reporters that he and his wife took shelter in their pool as the fires overran their area.
“Basically, for the next three hours, we watched everything burn around us,” he told reporters, his voice just above a whisper due to smoke inhalation. “It’s a nightmare you couldn’t even imagine.”
As of last week, more than 120 plaintiffs had filed 15 separate suits against PG&E over the fires, according to an estimate the utility included in a legal filing. Some of the law firms involved have even started running television ads seeking more North Bay residents interested in suing PG&E.
And yet, investigators with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, have not yet determined a cause for any of the fires, which together burned 210,000 acres, destroyed 8,900 structures and killed at least 43 people. The investigation may take months.
Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy hired its own investigators and filed its suits Tuesday, working with law firms Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora; Panish Shea & Boyle; Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger; and Abbey, Weitzenberg, Warren & Emery.
PG&E spokesman Keith Stephens noted in response that Cal Fire’s official investigation remains under way, and PG&E is cooperating with it.
“Our primary focus has been — and continues to be — the safety and well-being of the customers and communities that have been affected by these wildfires,” he said in an email.
PG&E last week filed a request with the Judicial Council of California to organize the many North Bay wildfire suits into five separate proceedings, based on the location of each fire concerned. So all of the plaintiffs suing over the Atlas Peak Fire, for example, would be part of a single proceeding, while those affected by the Tubbs Fire would be in a separate proceeding. The council, the policy-making body for California’s court system, has the authority to coordinate proceedings in complex cases.