Motion Seeks Rulings In 6 Issues In Suit Vs. SCE Over Woolsey Fire

LOS ANGELES, CA — The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services is seeking favorable rulings in six key issues next month in its lawsuit against the Southern California Edison Co. for SCE's alleged role in the ignition of the 2018 Woolsey Fire, but the utility is fighting back by contending that state and federal law block the agency from being granted such a motion.

"In this litigation, Cal OES seeks to recover from SCE more than a hundred million dollars of legislatively appropriated disaster relief funds without any statutory authorization to do so," SCE attorneys state in their court papers filed ahead of a Feb. 28 hearing before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William F. Highberger.

But under a principle called the "free public services doctrine, Cal OES is foreclosed from recovering because neither state nor federal law allow such recovery, the SCE lawyers state in their pleadings.

In their court papers, Cal OES attorneys state that the agency sued SCE in November 2021 to recover its own damages as well as the costs incurred by 22 state and local entities involving to their emergency responses or for their property damage caused by the Woolsey Fire.

The Cal OES motion is limited to the six contested legal issues and the agency does not seek a ruling on SCE's liability, according to the agency's attorneys' pleadings, which further states that actual costs will be determined at trial.

The Woolsey Fire started on Nov. 8, 2013, when an SCE distribution wire made contact with a guy wire, energizing the line and sending a shower of molten fragments into vegetation below, according to the agency's attorneys' pleadings, which further state that the flames moved rapidly through Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Cal OES and the California Highway Patrol mobilized an emergency response and evacuated more than 250,000 people and coordinated firefighting service for the next two weeks, the Cal OES attorneys state in their pleadings. The fire burned nearly 100,000 acres and damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 structures.

Cal OES and the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery organized a debris removal operation to contain to prevent the release and spread of hazardous materials and public entities such as the Santa Monica- Malibu Unified School district had to remove debris and ash as well as mitigate air pollution, the agency lawyers state in their court papers.

The six areas in which Cal OES seeks ruling in its favor include recovering its costs for fire suppression and other services occurred by itself and the CHP, accounting costs sustained by both entities, debris removal expenses run up by CalRecycle and the property damage and nuisance abatement costs incurred by the school district.

But SCE attorneys maintain in their court papers that Cal OES wants to "expand the law to create unprecedented liability for categories of damages that are unrecoverable at a time when SCE and other utilities are weathering the devastating impacts of climate change in California."

While the SMMUSD is free to upgrade its dated equipment, neither current nor common law compel SCE to pay for it, the utility's attorneys further state in their court papers.

At the same time as the Woolsey Fire, the unrelated Hill Fire was also burning in Ventura County and the Camp Fire, the largest of the three, was blazing in Northern California.

By BILL HETHERMAN / City News Service