Utility Wildfire Lawsuit in California

Key Takeaways

• Under section 13007 of the California Health and Safety Code, a person who wilfully, negligently or in violation of law sets a fire, allows one to be set, or allows a fire they kindled or attended to escape to another's property is liable to the owner for damages to the property caused by the fire.
• A utility wildfire claim turns on facts: the equipment involved, how it was inspected and maintained, the vegetation around it, and what investigators recorded about where and how the fire started.
• When the equipment belongs to a public entity, such as a city-owned electric utility, California's Government Code claim rules apply. Under section 911.2 a claim is presented first, and under section 945.6 the time to sue runs after the entity acts. These periods govern instead of the general personal-injury statute of limitations.
• Inverse condemnation is a separate path for property damaged for a public use, and section 1036 of the Code of Civil Procedure addresses the costs a plaintiff may recover when compensation is awarded in that kind of proceeding.
• The sections below cover when a fire may give rise to a claim, who may be named, the equipment records, filing deadlines, inverse condemnation, injuries and damages, and questions families often consider before a case evaluation.

The page stays with utility-equipment fires. The broader picture of California wildfire claims is on the site's page about California wildfire claim services.

When a Wildfire May Give Rise to a Legal Claim

California's fire liability rule is short, and every word in it carries weight. Section 13007 reaches any person who, "personally or through another," does one of three things: sets fire to the property of another, allows fire to be set to it, or allows a fire "kindled or attended by him" to escape to it. The conduct must be wilful, negligent, or in violation of law. The property may be privately or publicly owned. The person is liable to the owner for damages to the property caused by the fire.

Three parts of that rule tend to decide whether a utility fire fits it. The first is conduct: whether the fire was set or allowed to escape wilfully, negligently or in violation of a law or safety rule. The second is the connection to the person or company, including through another, such as a contractor. The third is causation, meaning the fire itself caused the damage. None of these is presumed from the fact that a fire burned near a power line. A fire, however destructive, does not by itself prove that anyone was negligent.

In practice, the questions in a utility case usually come down to the physical facts:

• the condition of the line, pole, transformer or other equipment near the point where the fire started;
• the inspection and maintenance history of that equipment;
• the clearance between energized lines and nearby trees and brush;
• the official findings about where the fire began and what ignited it.

Official investigations are part of that picture. The California Public Utilities Commission's wildfire page states that utilities must report to the Commission any fire involving their equipment that meets specific criteria, and that the Wildfire Safety Enforcement Branch of its Safety Enforcement Division investigates all wildfires reported to involve investor-owned utility equipment. Fire agencies, including CAL FIRE, also prepare origin-and-cause reports. An origin finding is an investigative record, not a verdict. It says where investigators believe the fire started and what they observed; whether any person or company is legally responsible is a separate question the law answers on the full facts.

For a family whose house is gone, this is often the first fork in the road: does the way this fire started fit the framework at all? That is a fair question to bring into a conversation with an attorney, along with whatever the investigators have released so far.

Who May Be Named as a Defendant

A utility fire can involve more than one business or agency, because the equipment, the land under it and the work done on it are often in different hands. The types of parties who may be named include:

• the utility that operates the lines and equipment;
• the owner of the poles, lines or other infrastructure, where that is a different entity;
• a contractor responsible for vegetation management or equipment maintenance;
• the manufacturer or seller of a piece of equipment, where a component is part of the question.

Whether any of them is responsible depends on what each one controlled and did, and on what the records show. Section 13007 reaches a person who sets a fire or allows one to escape "personally or through another," which is why the relationship between a utility and the people doing work for it can matter.

The type of defendant also changes the procedure. If the equipment is owned or operated by a public entity, a government body such as a city, a county, a district or the state, the Government Code requires a written claim to be presented to that entity before a lawsuit, under the deadlines explained further down this page. Those claim rules apply only to public entities. A privately owned utility or a private contractor is sued without that claim step, under different limitation periods.

Finding the right parties usually depends on records rather than assumptions: filings with the CPUC, fire investigation reports, utility maintenance logs and contracts showing who was responsible for clearing vegetation along a given line. People often learn, partway through, that the company whose name is on the pole is not the only one involved.

This page addresses fires in California where utility equipment may be part of the cause. It does not address fires started by other means, and it does not describe the law of any other state.

What the Equipment and Its Upkeep Have to Show

Every negligence-based fire case rests on four elements, and it helps to have them in plain words. A duty is a legal obligation to act with reasonable care toward others. A breach is a failure to meet that obligation. Causation means the breach actually brought about the harm. Damages are the losses the law recognizes as a result. In a utility case, the equipment and its upkeep are where most of the evidence on duty and breach lives.

California regulators set the frame for what utilities document. The CPUC's wildfire page describes General Order 95 as containing rules for the design, construction, maintenance, inspection, repair and replacement of overhead utility facilities, and states that its Rule 37, Table 1 addresses clearances between conductors and other structures and vegetation. The same page describes General Order 165 as establishing inspection requirements for electric distribution and transmission facilities, and states that Public Utilities Code 316 and General Order 95, Rule 19 govern the preservation of evidence for investigations of utility-related safety incidents.

Wildfire mitigation plans add another layer. According to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, electrical corporations are required to prepare and submit these plans for review and approval, and the plans should describe how the corporation is constructing, maintaining and operating its lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire. The CPUC page states that the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety reviews and approves or denies the plans and oversees compliance, while the CPUC has enforcement authority over utilities' performance of their plans and utility-caused wildfire. A plan describes what a utility proposed; whether it was followed at a particular location is a factual question.

The CPUC page also describes protective equipment, such as circuit breakers, reclosers and fuses, and states that during dry conditions in high fire-threat areas, utilities modify those settings to shut off power faster when the system detects a potential problem.

Records that usually matter on the equipment side include inspection logs, maintenance work orders, vegetation clearance records and compliance filings. If you lost a home or were hurt, the records families often gather on their own side include photos or video of the equipment and the area before and after the fire, an origin-and-cause report once released, utility billing and service records, and any notices received about outages in the days around the fire.

Filing Deadlines That Apply to These Claims

When a public entity owns or operates the equipment, the timeline begins with a claim, not a lawsuit. A statute of limitations is a law setting the time within which a case may be brought. Against a public entity, the Government Code claim periods below govern, not the general personal-injury statute of limitations. The site's page on wildfire claim deadlines collects the other periods in one place.

Under section 911.2 of the California Government Code, a claim relating to a cause of action for death, or for injury to a person, to personal property or to growing crops, must be presented not later than six months after the cause of action accrues. A claim relating to any other cause of action, which can include damage to land and buildings, must be presented not later than one year after accrual. Accrual is the point at which the law treats the claim as arising. For claims presented to the Department of General Services, the section also sets out how the presentation date is fixed when the filing fee is paid or a fee waiver is requested.

After the claim, section 945.6 of the Government Code generally sets the time to sue, subject to exceptions in sections 946.4 and 946.6 and a separate rule for people sentenced to state prison. If the entity gives written notice under section 913, suit must be commenced not later than six months after the notice is personally delivered or deposited in the mail. If no such written notice is given, suit must be commenced within two years from accrual, and any extension of the entity's time to act under section 912.4(b) is not counted in that period.

Where a six-month claim is not presented on time, section 911.4 of the Government Code allows a written application to the public entity for leave to present it. The application must be presented within a reasonable time not to exceed one year after accrual, must state the reason for the delay, and must attach the proposed claim. The section sets rules for counting that year, including that time during which the injured person was a minor is counted, while time during which the person is mentally incapacitated without a guardian or conservator is not, along with rules for certain children under juvenile court jurisdiction.

These periods are fixed by statute, and a claim not presented in time can end. Which of these periods applies, and from what date, turns on who owns the equipment and when the claim accrued. A conversation with an attorney can help clarify which framework fits a particular fire and loss.

Inverse Condemnation and What It Covers

Families often hear the phrase inverse condemnation for the first time after a fire, usually from a neighbor or a news report. Inverse condemnation is a claim that private property was damaged or taken for a public use without just compensation. It runs in the opposite direction from ordinary condemnation: instead of a government entity starting a case to acquire property, the property owner starts one, saying the property was already damaged.

California's section 1036 of the Code of Civil Procedure deals with costs in these cases. In any inverse condemnation proceeding, when the court renders judgment for the plaintiff by awarding compensation, or the attorney representing the public entity effects a settlement, the court or that attorney must determine and award or allow the plaintiff a sum that will reimburse the plaintiff's reasonable costs, disbursements and expenses. The statute names reasonable attorney, appraisal and engineering fees among them, actually incurred because of the proceeding in the trial court or in any appellate proceeding in which the plaintiff prevails on any issue.

Section 1036 is a cost provision. It names no defendant, and it does not by itself decide who may be sued in inverse condemnation or whether any fire supports such a claim. It applies only once compensation is awarded or a settlement is reached in that kind of proceeding.

The theory differs from a claim under section 13007. A section 13007 claim asks whether a fire was set or allowed to escape wilfully, negligently or in violation of law. An inverse condemnation claim focuses on property damaged for a public use. Whether it is relevant to a particular property loss depends on the facts and on the nature of the party whose equipment is involved, and it concerns property, not personal injury or death.

Injuries and Damages These Cases Address

A wildfire can take very different things from different members of the same family: the house, a business, health, a life. The law treats those losses in separate categories. Section 13007 speaks to damages to property caused by the fire, and other California rules address injury and death. The site's page on a wildfire lawsuit attorney explains the property damages rules further.

The categories of harm these cases address generally include:

• Property destruction and loss of use: homes, outbuildings, vehicles, belongings, trees and landscaping, and the use of a property while it cannot be lived in.
• Physical injuries: burns, smoke inhalation and injuries suffered during evacuation, described in the medical records that document them.
• Economic losses: medical expenses, lost income and the cost of replacing what burned.
• Wrongful death: a claim brought by surviving family members when a person dies as a result of another's wrongful act or neglect.

Damages are what the law may allow after liability is shown, not something any family is assured of. What may be recoverable depends on the facts: how the fire started, whether the elements of a claim are proved, the kind of loss, the records that document it, and the type of defendant. A death or injury claim against a public entity is also subject to the six-month claim period described above. Insurance payments, rebuilding and temporary housing raise their own questions, which the site's California wildfire resources page addresses.

When the loss is a person, the questions families carry are often less about categories and more about whether anyone will ever explain what happened. The records described on this page are frequently where that explanation begins.

Questions Worth Asking Before You Speak With an Attorney

Before a first conversation, many families find it useful to think through a handful of questions. None of them requires having the answers yet.

Who owns the equipment near where the fire started? Whether it belongs to a privately owned utility or a public entity matters, because a public entity brings in the Government Code claim periods.

What has the official investigation found? Some families have an origin-and-cause report; others have only news coverage or a notice that an investigation is open. Knowing what has been released, and by which agency, helps frame the conversation.

What does the timeline look like? The date and time the fire reached the property, any outage or shutoff notices, when the family evacuated and when injuries were treated all bear on accrual and the deadlines above.

What records are already in hand? If you lost property or were hurt, the records that usually matter include photos and video of the damage and of nearby equipment, utility service and billing records, insurance correspondence and claim numbers, medical records for any injuries, and the names of neighbors or others who saw the start of the fire.

Who else was affected? Several owners or family members may hold separate losses from the same fire, and each may face different periods.

A case evaluation is a conversation with our attorney about what happened and what the records show so far. If you would like to talk through the ownership, timeline and documents described here, you can request a case evaluation.