A San Francisco-based jury will be faced with the responsibility of determining whether the Tubbs fire can be named among those blazes as part of the PG&E fire season in Northern California, according to Law360. A trial date was set for lawsuits filed by several elderly victims of the wildfire in Sonoma County California in October 2017.

The PG&E fire case, appearing before San Francisco Superior Court Judge Teri Jackson, recently had a trial date set for Jan. 7, 2020. The aim is to answer key questions in advance of the June 30, 2020 deadline when PG&E is set to come out of bankruptcy. The utility is hard-pressed to finalize a bankruptcy plan prior to this date in order to take advantage of California’s new $21 billion wildfire protection fund, according to the Law360 report.

The PG&E fire lawsuits had not been making progress in the court system due to the private utility filing for bankruptcy back in January 2019. While counsel for the victims came before Judge Jackson seeking expediency for their plaintiffs on September 16, the magistrate had been faced with attempts from the utility to further delay the judicial process.

The utility reportedly sought to have the venue for the trial moved to Sonoma County from San Francisco in the hopes of having a better chance at a ‘jury of peers’. The judge didn’t feel that the argument held water because that was where the fire took place and few people would be empathetic toward the utility if its equipment was found responsible.

Previous Investigations

The determination of causation is very important in that PG&E could face multiple additional liabilities running in the billions of dollars if found to be responsible. Ironically, according to a Jan. 24, 2019 article posted by ABC7news.com, a report by Cal Fire indicates that in the case of the Tubbs Fire, electrical equipment located on private property was the cause rather than PG&E equipment.

This is an important conclusion but doesn’t necessarily get PG&E off the legal hook. First off, the report is not admissible in court. Then there is the vaguely-understood concept known as inverse condemnation when applied to California utility companies and wildfires like the Tubbs Fire.

According to Jan. 15, 2019 article posted on Bloomberg.com, regardless of proven negligence, utilities can be held liable for damages to property caused by their equipment even if they followed every safety rule and guidance measure from the state and federal governments.

On top of that, there are still questions of negligence at play. If the private property identified by Cal Fire had ill-operating equipment, was the utility company responsible for providing power with inadequate inspection? These are some of the questions that will need to be answered in this upcoming trial.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.