PG&E Faces Another Lawsuit Filed on Behalf of Fire Victim

Adding to the long list of lawsuits PG&E is already facing for the Sept. 9 pipeline explosion, the utility is being sued by another resident—this time on behalf of one of the victims who died in the fire.

Eric Laughlin—the longtime friend and executor of , the last of the eight residents who died after the blast—filed the lawsuit last week in San Mateo County Superior Court, asking for unspecified damages and accusing Pacific Gas & Electric Co. of negligence, strict liability and trespassing.

Franco, who was known as Jimmy among his surf club buddies, died on Sept. 27 at the UCSF Medical Center after he did not awake from a drug-induced coma. Doctors had put him in the coma before treating the severe burns he sustained .

He was renting a room in a house on Glenview Drive located 250 feet from where the PG&E gas transmission pipeline exploded. Franco turned 58 years old while he was comatose.

Franco was a graduate of Terra Nova High School in Pacifica and the first photographer for the Pedro Point Surf Club, something of which he was very proud, Laughlin said at a for his friend in October.