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Two federal judges who lost their home in Palisade in the Pacific Ocean at the Firestorm in January joined hundreds of neighbors in suing the Los Angeles Water and Power Department, claiming that the utility had properly prepared the wildfire and could not respond when it broke out.
US District Judge Dean Pregerson, who is currently sitting in the Central District of California, and Vijay “Jay” Gandhi, who served as a magistrate’s judge in the same court, filed a lawsuit with his family last week.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that the Parisades fire was “caused by both the water and electricity assets of the LADWP, particularly the empty reservoirs and the energised powerline.”
The lawsuit cites people sitting empty during a shootout since the time they discovered LADWP’s Santaynez Reservoir in Pallisade.
“The LADWP was not prepared for a Palliss fire despite the disastrous warnings by the National Weather Service for “Red Flag Warning in Particularly Dangerous Conditions” that had the potential for rapid fire spread and extreme fire action,” the complaint said.
A request for comment from LA-based law firm Tolles & Olson was hired by LADWP to handle Palisades’ fire lawsuit, but was not immediately answered. LADWP’s latest statement on the pending lawsuit said it expects the plaintiffs to continue to participate in such lawsuits, but dismissed the allegations that the utility is not prepared and could be held liable for the fire.
“Our crew and systems were prepared for situations that could strain the system, but they were not designed to combat the large, wind-driven wildfires of the speed and scale presented by the historically destructive Palisade fire,” the statement says, as a description of several experts retreating.
The utility also said, “long-settled laws and precedents prevent water operators and their fee payers from being liable for wildfire losses.”
Current and former federal judges who filed lawsuits as residents rather than official capabilities oppose their line of defense. One of the judges worked as a mediator in a previous fire settlement between gas, electricity and residents of the Pacific Ocean.
“Cities have to stand up and assert responsibility and do the right thing by the residents of Palisades. That’s why I took part in this fight,” Gandhi, who worked as a mediator, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Daily News. He called the Palisade Fire “a manifestation of a widely known but neglected risk, and cities need to acknowledge it, as it cannot happen again.”
The judge’s case has recently been consolidated in more than 10 other similar cases against LADWP, resulting in more than 750 other residents, filed by Alexander Robertson, one of the lawyers working on the case. A long list of cases for utilities continues to pile up as homeowners seek compensation for damages that are likely caused by improper management of the utility’s water resources or its power lines.
Images of the civil lawsuit filed against DWP show the views of broken cross arms, insulators and power lines.
(California Superior Court)
The lawsuit also alleges that most of the LADWP’s outbreak lines remained vigorous during the fire, “causing the fire and fire of Pacific grapes during the predicted Santa Ana-style event.” [which] We accelerated the rapid spread of the Palisade fire,” the complaint says.
“The LADWP knew of the critical risk wildfires posed decades before the Pallisard fires that were ineffective infrastructural management, delays in repairs, insecure equipment, and/or aging infrastructure,” the complaint states. “One critical infrastructure obstacle can have a domino effect,” he said, calling it a public necessity for nearby reservoirs and electrical lines.
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