News: Witch Creek/Guejito fires litigation

Largest group yet sues over Witch Creek/Guejito fires

SAN DIEGO ---- A group of 126 families filed a lawsuit against San Diego Gas & Electric Co. on Friday afternoon, alleging that the utility was negligent and "despicable" in allowing its power lines to spark three fires that destroyed nearly $400 million in property and scorched a 200,000-acre swath from Santa Ysabel to Rancho Santa Fe in October.

The lawsuit, filed in San Diego Superior Court, seeks a yet-unspecified amount in restitution, along with punitive damages to deter future negligence. Attorneys planning to litigate the case said they were still in the process of estimating the scope of their clients' losses, but a consulting attorney for the plaintiffs estimated that the totals could reach $50 million.

The lawsuit alleges that the utility and its San Diego-based corporate parent, Sempra Energy, didn't take the precautions necessary to keep aboveground electrical cables from sparking against one another in the hot, gale-force Santa Ana winds that swept out of the Southern California desert on Oct. 21-22.

When one wire sways close enough to another that is strung parallel, a charged electrical field can ignite tree branches or twigs blowing through the air, said Murrieta attorney Mitch Wagner, one of four litigators whose names appear on the complaint. Wires generally sway or blow in the same direction but can easily come close enough to "arc" ---- spark ---- when one snaps back toward the other, Wagner said.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported in November that sparks from electrical wires had caused all three fires. The agency has declined to release details of its investigations until it publishes a series of final reports, now expected next month.

Utility representatives have acknowledged the preliminary findings, but have said repeatedly that no level of caution could ever prevent hot, dry winds from blowing vegetation and electrical wires into one another. A spokeswoman for SDG&E said she couldn't comment on the particulars of the lawsuit, which hasn't been formally delivered to the company.

"There's a big distinction between what the ignition source is and whether there's any liability," spokeswoman Stephanie Donovan said. "You really can't protect your system 100 percent."

Wagner dismissed that argument, saying the company could have taken several precautions short of burying the cables underground. The lawsuit alleges that the company was fully aware of the potential for fire and that it simply decided not to do anything about it.

An inflexible spacer installed between each set of poles, at the point where the parallel wires sag closest to the ground, would have kept them at a constant and safe distance from one another, the suit alleges. Rubber sleeves would have served the same purpose, Wagner said.

"It doesn't take a weatherman to tell you that sagging lines are going to blow together," Wagner said. "For them to say they're not aware would be like a surgeon saying he doesn't know where the heart is."

Wagner said he and San Diego attorneys Tom Tosdal, Terry Singleton and Gerald Singleton had delayed the filing of their lawsuit several times as the report's release was pushed back from early February and then from early April. A spokesman for CalFire said Friday the agency would begin May 1 to release a series of reports on Witch Creek/Guejito fires and the 20 other wind-driven fires that it battled in late October.

Donovan said company officials had become aware of the group and its intent to sue. Sempra's annual financial report to the federal Securities and Exchanged Commission mentioned the first five lawsuits but said the company held $1 billion in liability insurance.

Wagner and the other attorneys gathered the plaintiffs through a series of meetings in Ramona and other areas damaged by the fires.

The plaintiffs are concentrated along the Highway 78 corridor between Escondido and Santa Ysabel, site of the 198,000-acre Witch Creek/Guejito fire complex. A San Diego County government report released in November estimated the two fires, which started on Oct. 21 and 22 and soon merged, destroyed 1,075 houses and caused $295 million in damage.

About a half-dozen of the plaintiffs in the newest lawsuit live in Fallbrook and Rainbow, where the 9,500-acre Rice fire broke out Oct. 22, consulting attorney Michael Feinberg said. The county report estimated damage from that fire at $100 million, including 240 houses and 1,000 acres of agricultural land.

The suit filed Friday follows five suits filed since mid-November. A San Diego attorney representing two of the plaintiff groups said Friday that his clients and two other sets of plaintiffs were seeking to have their cases consolidated into a single case. The attorney, James Frantz, said the group would then seek class status, which would allow them to press their claim on behalf of a large number of others.

Even so, the 126 families whose names appear on the complaint Friday make up by far the largest group of named plaintiffs to file suit over the fires. Wagner said his clients' losses varied widely, from chickens and flower fields to cars, houses, and personal mementos. For that reason, he and the other attorneys said they're seeking to have their clients' case considered separately from any class that's certified.

"We're talking about the destruction of people's homes," Wagner said. "We're talking about ... emotional distress. It requires individualized presentation to a jury.

Source: nctimes.com