A lawsuit against utility company Southern California Edison alleges poor equipment maintenance was the origin of the Eaton Fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and other buildings in Altadena, California earlier this month.
Attorney James Frantz, who is representing 15,000 victims of fire in Altadena, says the company has put “profits over safety.”
“It’s just destroyed lives and families all the way throughout. It’s really unconscionable that these public utilities don’t get it,” Frantz told the Washington Examiner.
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“They cannot put the safety of the people and public at risk by not maintaining their equipment,” He continued.
One of the residents Franz is representing alleges that surveillance video from an area gas station proves the utility company’s power lines ignited the Eaton Fire.
Frantz said many residents are still displaced by the fires, noting one elderly woman who is still living in a nearby hotel with her 91-year-old mother, but may not be able to stay there much longer.
“You have other people who are more affluent, who have another house, but most of these people don’t have that luxury,” Frantz added.
A judge ordered Southern California Edison to preserve its equipment in the area for at least 21 days. Previously, the utility company had paid hundreds of millions in settlements for other wildfires, raising questions about their safety protocols. Investigators, however, have not determined what exactly sparked the fire.
“They put profits over safety just like they’ve always done,” Frantz said. “And they deny, deny, deny. They said their equipment was deenergized, it was not,” citing the video footage.
“That’s the video of when the Eaton fire started, and that’s their equipment, right there,” He said.
Frantz said it was “unbelievable” that California had previously been through multiple fires caused by electric companies, including the 2017 Thomas Fire and the 2020 Bobcat Fire.
“Scores of people’s lives lost, and then they’re doing this again,” He said. “I mean, this is really, really terrible. Despicable behavior.”
Southern California Edison spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy said in a phone interview with the Washington Examiner that the company would fully cooperate with the investigation, noting they could not comment on the video footage until experts complete a review.
The company also stated that they had “reduced the risk of losses by catastrophic wildfires by 85 to more than 90% compared to pre-2018 levels.”
Frantz previously represented clients impacted by the Maui fires in Lahaina, Hawaii. He said handling this kind of work can be “unnerving” and “emotional.”
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“I get very angry, and I was very angry; now I’m even more angry because it’s happening all over again, and we’re just trying to help these folks recover in Lahaina, and it happens all over again,” He said.
“The property damage is much more significant in the L.A. fires. In Lahaina, we lost about 3,000 structures, but we lost the whole city of Lahaina, which is just the epic city, the heritage city of all of Hawaii,” Frantz said, adding that Pasadena, where the Eaton Fire burned, also has a lot of heritage.