Pacific Palisades home destroyed by wildfire. (Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)
LA County, Pasadena Sue So Cal Edison Alleging Equipment Started Eaton Fire
SCE faces multiple suits over the Eaton fire
By Evan Symon, March 6, 2025 2:45 am
Los Angeles County and the cities of Pasadena and Sierra Madre filed lawsuits against utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) on Wednesday, alleging that company equipment sparked the destructive Eaton fire in January.
According to the Los Angeles County suit, the County alleges that faulty SCE equipment in Eaton Canyon helped spark the Eaton fire, which raged from January 7th to January 31st, causing 17 deaths and over 9,400 destroyed structures. The suit notes that ample evidence, including witnesses, photos, and videos, point to the fire starting under SCE owned transmission lines in Eaton Canyon. In suing SCE, the County hopes to recoup costs from battling the blaze, as well as from damages to the environment, infrastructure, and public health.
“The county’s case is essential to the restoration and rebuilding process for the community, including residences and businesses, to recover from the devastation,” said the County in a statement. “The lawsuit seeks to recover costs and damages sustained from the blaze that damaged essential community infrastructure including parks, a nature center and multiple trails, the county said in a statement. The fire has massively impacted the County’s natural resources, harmed the environment and wildlife, and threatened public health.”
“We are committed to seeking justice for the Altadena community and the taxpayers of Los Angeles county,” added Los Angeles County counsel Dawyn Harrison in another statement.
SCE responded with little to say on the suit on Wednesday, but did note that they are currently reviewing the lawsuit, and will review the ones from Pasadena and Sierra Madre soon as well.
“We are reviewing the lawsuit and will address it through the appropriate legal process” said SCE spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy.
The three lawsuits are only latest Eaton Fire related suits for SCE. In January, many residents filed suits against SCE for allegedly failing to prevent to prevent the fires. Other suits around negligence have also popped up. However, until Wednesday, the County and cities have avoided such a suit, wanting to gather enough evidence beforehand to make sure that there was hard proof behind their allegations. While CalFire is still investigating the cause, Los Angeles County and the two San Gabriel Valley cities finally saw enough proof to take SCE to court.
In addition to the destruction in L.A. County, the Eaton Fire, along with the Palisades Fire, helped move up a recall attempt against Governor Gavin Newsom, with a major reason behind the recall now being his mismanagement of the fires. While the suit will likely have little effect on the recall, it could bring up state deenergization measures and if SCE followed them.
“The results of the CalFire investigation will be critical,” explained environmental lawyer Angela Pataki to the Globe on Wednesday. “If it is found that their equipment was at fault, it is over for them on a lot of the suits. Every utility company out here fears destructive wildfires being caused by their equipment. PG&E paid tens of billions for causing several fires like the Paradise Camp Fire. This one, it was deadly and destroyed a lot more homes too.
“Los Angeles County would not have filed a lawsuit unless they were sure that proof was on their side. I mean, the fires started almost two months ago now. They didn’t fire until now because they wanted to make sure. Counties and cities don’t just file willy-nilly. They need to be sure. So this doesn’t seem to bode well for Edison right now.”
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November 20, 2020
First government burns down these cities and then they pass on the costs to the victims via energy price hikes. This tactic is not going to work anymore. The truth will come out much to the dismay of the NWO.
I should add that a State Farm VP is hinting this was all by design. SF is also blaming the victims!
I dunno… not taking sides: I was once deposed to a personal injury lawsuit. The suit involved SCE, a number of electrical contractors and other types of contractors, a trainload of “expert witnesses” utilized by all involved, all sorts of legal firms – including the largest multinational firm on planet earth, a CalOsha inspector who had no clue as to the mechanics of what he investigated, the safety departments of SCE, all contractors particiating in the project and practically anyone who casually passed by the location for several years between the date of incident and the trial. Untold hundreds of millions of dollars were thrown to the “legal process.” I, one of the deposed mass, genuinely thought the plaintiff’s attorney was after me even though I was not even remotely involved. After the deposition I got a redacted copy of the CalOsha investigation. I found the direct cause of the accident in less than 5 minutes of reading the erroneous report, at the most it would have involved two extremely negligent employees of a single heavy equipment contractor, that contractor had almost immediately settled with the plaintiff because the was no arguing against the verifiable facts – which the Osha inspector grossly misinterpreted. No other person or entity was was culpable. Anyone with the slightest sense of cause and effect would have known… Ray Charles topped with a hard hat would have seen what happened… but the “qualified” government inspector, all those safety departments and all those “expert witnesses” missed it, and at least one innocent respondent company was robbed by the plaintiff’s attorney. So, who’s to say that a bunch of career county bureaucrats have the slightest idea of the facts behind the case they are bringing to court, not to mention the gold bar buying legal yahoos SCE will probably send to court? But, I got a grand bonus of $30.00 for being forced to take an unpaid day off work to testify, it barely paid for my high priced restaurant breakfast in that wildly overpriced portion of the state, and it certainly didn’t cover the fuel cost of traveling to and from that menacing clown show.
I checked the link to the ny times article, I didn’t ecounter video, just some still pictures, maybe I’m missing something. The pictures show me nothing unusual, just a tower with some rust on it. The arrows point to nothing visually confirming the allegation of a flash within the angle of the pictures and the distance from the part of the tower. The parts of the tower the times says was affected (discoloration indicative of a fault not shown in the pictures) is farther away from the nearest point of contact than what I believe most likely. I don’t see signs of damage to the aluminum conductors, which is far softer than the iron used in the tower and is far more subject to heat damage. The pictures as presented don’t support what the times is reporting. I will say I much appreciate the Globe’s attempt to bring visual clarity to the story, however the times doesn’t provide photographic evidence.
To clarify what I believe would have been more likely to support the allegation of a fault: the deadend insulators (horizontal) are static, no possibility of a conductor to move closer to ground as presented by the construction of the tower. There is a slight possibility that an extremely strong wind could push the jumper supported at the end of the suspension insulators (vertical) towards ground as presented by the construction of the tower. The conductor wouldn’t have to actually touch the tower, there is a distance a certain voltage will jump. However, I believe the scenario to be unlikely due to the engineering of the tower, which will take extreme wind into account. Furthermore, the “discoloration” alleged but not demonstrated by the times is above the arm supporting the conductors, the jumper is supported under the arm. I didn’t see damage indicative of a fault underneath the arm. The arrow pointing to “discoloration” on a tower leg close to earth would be impossible due to the path of least resistance electricity follows. Another possibility is a large object, such as a tarp, blowing into the tower, but that’s unlikely. The next possibility is a tweeker out in the harsh elements for reasons only explained by drug impairement somehow got a fire going on the right of way. There’s always the possibility of a willful arsonist, and the wind would blow away evidence of presence. If the vegetative burn is directly under the tower that might be suggestive of someone setting a fire as wind will blow sparks some distance away from an elevated source.
Do we as a society want electricity or not? All technology comes with risks. The government should’ve cleared the brush.. All this will accomplish is raise everyone’s bill.
I’m not quite sure how to say this… Investor owned utilities are heavily regulated, cost plus monopolies, and most people would cast a jaundiced eye at the concept of monopoly with more than a large helping of distrust. A lot of those fully believe the companies rip off the customer with dishonest billing, and the loudest critics of everything else to do with the existence and workings of service to the rate paying public seem to be the most ignorant of the true issues involved. While it is true the stockholders don’t care the slightest how the money is made and the board of diectors probably haven’t a clue as to the operational realities at the supervisory and labor levels, the utilities have a lot of regulatory hoops to jump through. The money isn’t made by sales at the meter, but by presenting a rate case that maximizes cost plus return realized through retail rate price. Crappy rate case makes a crappy return at the meter. In that respect those corporations are no different than any other business types, he who has the sharpest pencil wins. As for a successful lawsuit, that might spank the stockholders but does nothing to punish the politicians and bureaucrats who set up the conditions that created so much damage by not managing forest and scrublands. And, with the hypocrites politicians and bureaucrats often are, they might be same ones who both neglected their duties to the public and covers it up by filing lawsuits.
Something just struck me, could all this have been set up by someone with an axe to grind, personal or political? High speed wind blows away normal evidence of presence, wind driven fire creates a lot of damage. Damage and personal harm causes tremendous outrage. Outrage files lawsuits… traditional source of vital power punished to the tune of billions of dollars… At this time this is speculation that could be classified as “conspiracy theory,” but since it has taken 6 months to 6 years over the last 10 years for all of my “conspiracy theories” to come true… The NY Times article failed to provide photographic evidence of a flash, maybe the photographer didn’t know what to look for, it does not seem there is any visual indication of a flash. Perhaps the most pertinent information either way will be in the jurisidictional substation(s’) logs and records as to whether or not the circuit relayed, and maybe how “anomaly” is defined and what it actually is. I believe modern transmission circuit breakers can open and close incredibly fast, but I don’t know if that is faster than a spark can be produced – but it is my unverified belief that is the case. However, a circuit relaying at precisely the time of ignition would weigh against that argument. There is an old story about a DWP transmission tracking to ground on smoke, but that would be from decades ago and might just be just a story. However, if true, that would involve an already burning fire and no significant wind. In any case, the suit will be argued on both sides by lawyers ignorant of how things work and decided by pretty much the same, with judgement burdened with all sorts of prejudices and preconceived notions.