A dozen Pacific Palisades and residents of Malibu continue the city of Los Angeles, alleging that the Ministry of Water and Energy could have done more to prevent and contain the January forest fires that destroyed their homes.
The list of complainants, every 70 years or more, can be read as a distribution of Hollywood characters, including a survivor of the Holocaust and a former American navy pilot undergoing cancer treatment.
In a complaint filed on Monday evening, they alleged that the city should have made sure that the key tanks were filled with water and that all the fire terminals were operational before the palisades fire.
Times previously reported that in the accounting of hell on January 7, the Santa Ynez reservoir had been empty For months and more than 1,000 terminals needed repair. While the fire spread that night, dozens of fires in the Pacific palisades Ran low on water.
The complaint also claims that the DWP has ignored urgent wind warnings and has kept its electrical equipment in the under -tensioning area, which “contributed to fires or triggered new spot fires” in the burn area of the Palisades.
“All this took together makes the city, including DWP, guilty of the damage that customers have suffered – losing their houses and all their precious goods,” said Crystal Nix -Hines, partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, the law firm representing the complainants. “It could have been prevented.”
A spokesperson for the DWP refused to comment on Tuesday afternoon because the city’s prosecutor’s office had “still been served with the official complaint”.
Several similar cases were deposited in the months which followed that the fires of palisades killed 12 people and destroyed nearly 7,000 structures.
Until now, the complainants have only requested compensation for the loss of their property; The city of immunity against affirmations on emotional distress and certain other impacts of the fire.
The Times reported in February that the DWP had approved a $ 10 million contract over three years with law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson to defend the public service against the growing number of prosecution.
The complainants in the last case essentially allege that the city destroyed their goods without giving them fair compensation for the loss.
The complaint, filed with the upper state court in the county, includes several heartbreaking stories.
A passage describes how Rachel Schwartz, 93, “arrived in Detroit with his sister in 1946 after surviving the Holocaust, including the Warsaw ghetto, three concentration camps and a death march.”
Schwartz moved to Los Angeles in 1960 and bought his house in Pacific Palisades 28 years ago. She has lost the house and many invaluable goods in the fire.
Kenneth and Kristina Peterson were with their two children visiting Hawaii for Kristina’s 60th anniversary when the fire broke out. They “looked at the images of their burning community, which were repeatedly played on television, helplessly, according to the complaint.
Ken Peterson, 75, underwent treatment for cancer at the time. Former American navy pilot whose grandfather and the father served in the two world wars, his memories were all destroyed in the fire, including a “naval federation medal for a sustained meritorious service, flight combinations, a pilot license and logbook”.
In a bright point in the middle of all the destruction, a neighbor saved the dog from the peers before the flames consume their house, according to the trial.
The involvement of several residents of Malibu – including the peers – in the case is unique in the middle of the recent wave of cases.
Malibu is a separate city of Los Angeles, but the complainants allege that the actions and the inaction of its DWP before the fire realized its spread to the neighboring coastal enclave.
“Conscious decisions of the city to leave its reservoir and its power are simply unforgivable,” said Jeffrey Boozell, another lawyer for the complainants.
California Daily Newspapers
