The master lawsuit in the Palisades fire has added several new defendants who are being blamed for overgrown brush, toppled wooden power poles, natural gas explosions and a lack of water, all contributing to the mammoth blaze.
The lawsuit, originally naming the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, now also is taking aim at the Getty Villa, SoCalGas, Southern California Edison, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, three communications companies and others.
“The Palisades fire was the result of a cascading series of failures by multiple utilities and public agencies,” said Alexander Robertson, one of the attorneys in the case. “The 10,000 victims deserve to have their day in court to prove their case against all of the defendants which contributed to the worst urban conflagration in the history of Los Angeles.”
Many victims of the fire that destroyed more than 7,000 structures and claimed 12 lives initially sued LADWP after some fire hydrants ran dry as the nearby Santa Ynez Reservoir sat empty. The complaints also allege that sparking or downed power lines exacerbated the inferno. The suits are now under one master complaint, Grigsby et al.
The LADWP’s 117-million-gallon reservoir in Pacific Palisades had been empty for nearly a year, awaiting repairs. That left the community with only 3 million gallons of water in three separate tanks to fight the mammoth fire, the suit said. The hydrants went dry after 12 hours, according to the lawsuit.
Ellen Cheng, spokesperson for the LADWP, responded that “the amended complaint continues to be misleading or inaccurate.”
Cheng added that the water supply to Pacific Palisades was used at “extraordinary rates,” overtaxed by firefighters plugged into hydrants, consumers who turned on garden hoses and sprinklers, and damaged pipes that leaked water.
“LADWP’s system meets fire code requirements for fighting structure fires, but, like all municipal water systems, it is not designed to fight large-scale wildfires,” she said.
This lawsuit also blames Getty Villa, which showcases Greek and Roman art and antiquities in a “re-created Roman country home” in Pacific Palisades, for allegedly not clearing overgrown brush on its border. It claims the brush caught fire and sparked nearby neighborhoods, including Castellammare and Pacific View Estates.
Residents had been trying since 2015 to get the Getty Villa to maintain the brush rimming the property, according to the suit.
“Despite having an endowment of $8.6 billion and revenue in 2023 of $505 million, the Getty Trust repeatedly failed to comply with its obligation to manage vegetation in order to keep the trees and bushes around the Getty Villa trimmed,” the suit said. “Instead, the Getty Villa repeatedly denied that there was any problem with its vegetation, and made excuses for why its sprawling and overrun vegetation could not be addressed.”
After the catastrophic Palisades fire, the Getty rushed to cut trees down in what the lawsuit described as an apparent effort to “expunge the evidence” and attempt to demonstrate responsible vegetation management.
“But it was too little, too late,” the suit said.
A Getty official responded that the museum is “reviewing the materials and is unable to provide further comment at this time.”
Also added as a defendant was SoCalGas, which operated natural gas lines that the suit said caused homes to explode.
Hit by flames and heat, SoCalGas’s lines failed to purge or shut down, leading to natural gas flowing at high pressure from the lines, helping the fire to spread, the suit said. The explosions caused secondary fires that torched the neighborhoods, according to the suit.
Fire safety valves should have been used to automatically shut off the gas flow, the suit said.
SoCalGas did not respond to a message left on its 24-hour media line.
SCE was added as a new defendant because its wooden poles caught fire, broke and fell into homes along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, the suit said. The suit alleged the poles in Malibu should have been wrapped with a special metal mesh that would have helped them withstand the fire and heat.
David Eisenhauer, an SCE spokesman, said, “This complaint serves as a divisive distraction to community members and Southern California Edison will vigorously defend this case through the legal process.”
The suit also alleges that equipment from communication companies AT&T, Frontier and Charter overloaded LADWP poles in Pacific Palisades, causing them to snap in the fire. Charter Communications had no comment. AT&T and Frontier did not respond to requests for comment.
Additionally, the suit targets Las Virgenes Municipal Water District for allegedly shutting off its water supply just as the fire approached the Las Flores Canyon community on Rambla Pacifico. Because of the lack of water, victims and firefighters were unable to effectively fight the fire, which consumed homes unabated, the suit said.
Adrienne Burns, spokesperson for the LVMD, said the allegations are without merit and the claims are without legal basis.
“The District will vigorously defend this action and will have no further public comment regarding this matter except to the extent those occur in the court proceedings,” Burns said.