L.A. County sues Southern California Edison over Eaton fire

Los Angeles County sued Southern California Edison on Wednesday over its alleged role in the devastating Eaton fire.

The lawsuit is the latest to allege that Edison’s equipment caused the blaze, which destroyed about 9,000 homes and killed 17 people, making it one of the most destructive wildfires in California history. Residents have filed more than 40 lawsuits against the utility, focusing on transmission towers where the first flames were spotted. The cities of Pasadena and Sierra Madre also plan to sue Edison, according to a county news release.

“All evidence is pointing to them,” said Scott Kuhn, an attorney for the county who spearheaded the suit.

The lawsuit marks the third time the county has sued Edison since 2018. The county won a $63-million settlement from Edison over the origin of the Woolsey fire in 2018 and $80 million over the cause of the Bobcat fire in 2020.

“Our hearts are with the communities affected by the wildfires in Southern California, and we are reviewing the lawsuit,” said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokesperson with Southern California Edison. “We will address it through the appropriate legal process.”

As in its previous lawsuits against Edison, the county alleges that the fire began when Edison’s equipment either came into contact with nearby vegetation or caused sparks that ignited it.

The lawsuit alleges that Edison’s equipment failed to work as intended and that the company “failed to properly, safely, and prudently inspect, repair, maintain and/or operate the electrical equipment in its utility infrastructure.”

The county accuses the company of failing to maintain the vegetation surrounding the transmission towers, as required by the state, and failing to de-energize the circuits to prevent a fire during the hurricane-force winds.

Edison “had a duty to properly maintain and operate its electrical infrastructure, including any equipment that has been decommissioned, yet failed to do so,” the complaint states.

The county lawsuit also cites a filing Edison made with state regulators revealing that the transmission lines over Eaton Canyon saw a momentary increase of electrical current at about the same time the Eaton fire ignited on Jan. 7. The incident occurred after Edison’s Eagle Rock-Gould line — which connects to the Gould substation in La Cañada Flintridge about five circuit miles from the suspected start of the fire — experienced a fault, or a disruption in an electric current where the current takes an unintended path, often causing flashes of light or sparks.

Edison officials, in the filing with the California Public Utilities Commission, said the surge “remained within the design limits and operating criteria for these circuits and, as intended, did not trigger system protection on these lines.”

Cal Fire and the Los Angeles County Fire Department are still investigating the cause of the fire and have not released an official conclusion. Kuhn said findings from the Fire Department’s investigation were not included in the lawsuit, which relies mostly on video footage, photographs and witness accounts already in the public domain.

Edison officials have pointed out that the cause of the fire has not been determined but acknowledged in a filing in February with state regulators that its equipment may have played a role.

The company added in the filing that it “has not identified typical or obvious indications that would support this association, such as broken conductors, fresh arc marks in the preliminary origin area or evidence of faults on the energized lines running through the area.”

But the filing from the utility company has prompted additional scrutiny into its equipment and how that equipment operated when the fire began. A video obtained by Edelson PC, one of the firms now suing Edison, appeared to show blue arcing in the canyon moments before the fire ignited.

Investigators hired by law firms suing Edison have also focused on an idle transmission tower on the hillside, which has not been used by Edison for more than 50 years but somehow became re-energized.

Nearly two weeks after the Eaton fire started, Edison disclosed that workers had re-energized the transmission towers over Eaton Canyon, and crews observed small flashes of white light on the towers. The flashes of light were also observed on the idle transmission tower.

Kuhn said the county is looking to recoup “at least hundreds of millions of dollars” for firefighting and emergency response costs, as well as infrastructure repairs, to help Altadena, an unincorporated part of the county, recover from the blaze.

“We see this lawsuit as part of the rebuilding of the Altadena community,” he said.