# Discussing the Eaton Fire Lawsuit

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** AttorneyTom
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVBKRDaAosY
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/43656

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

what's going on y'all attorney Tom here Southern California Edison is facing multiple lawsuits by Altadena fire victims in California State Court these claims accuse SoCal Edison of negligently managing power line equipment that on January 7th reportedly sparked the eaten fire which has already damaged over 7,000 structures and killed at least 16 individuals several eyewitness accounts videos and photographs from the Eaton Canyon fire show emerging from the base of power transmission towers owned and operated by SoCal Edison including a photo taken just 6 minutes after the reported ignition SoCal Edison has a history of causing catastrophic damage in Southern California and in just the last decade SoCal Edison's electrical equipment was responsible for the 2017 Thomas fire and 2018 Wooley fire both of which destroyed thousands of homes caused billions of dollars in damage and displaced thousands of families in today's video I'm going to analyze the lawsuits and speak with Bob Simon a lawyer involved in the case Bob how are you doing okay all things considered my friend how you doing Tom okay it's no exaggeration to say you represent hundreds of clients at this time yeah so we probably have right around that amount of people that we helping um the way that we're going after this is I'm a Child lawyer I try cases I storytelling this is to protect the community to make sure that they're not taking taken advantage of by firms trying to either charge them too much by people trying to buy their property to Discount those types of things I mean we've literally been sifting through people's homes you know find valuables that kind of stuff so there's probably already a dozen or so lawsuits that have already been filed we want to speed up that timeline to try to hold Edison accountable sooner than later it's already been appointed to a judge in downtown Los Angeles you know they have to preserve the equipment and things where the fire started Edison already tried to do the finger pointing game and say no there was a homeless encampment like 300 yards away which had nothing to do with this I mean there's so much origin Fire videos that's coming out every single day there's video evidence that I see circulating online showing what appears to be the actual ignition y i think for a lay person and if anybody's watched this channel before you know that I say that in order to analyze a lawsuit properly you need three things liability damages Pockets to pay the triangle yeah it's a tripod without one leg this whole thing fails let's start with liability what are you alleging in these complaints well I mean there's several things I mean first of all I mean it's straight negligence I mean they have faulty equipment that they've known they were warned many times of the dry brush to clear it out they did not do it they did not respond to any of those there's a way that you can get attorney's fees through inverse condonation right because they're literally taking people out of their homes several causes of action you know in the end I believe are accountable for this and will be held fully liable and the people that they harmed will have they'll have to repay everything from property losses to personal property losses to PTSD to emotional harm and all the things that they took from them okay well so let's go through just a little bit about each individual complaint so of course the four elements of negligence are Duty breach causation damages um C can you go through and just explain for anybody who might be listening how you're going to build that case what Duty did SoCal Edison have to the public uh the duty not to let their stuff burn down and cause fires right I mean it's they literally ignited a fire by having faulty equipment I mean their duty is to have a safe environment and to not harm Thy Neighbor right so and of course that goes with the breach as well but I was reading the complaint earlier it appears that there were warnings prior to the actual ignition of the fire that there were conditions that were extremely conducive to having fire and what I would think is the average person might see this case and they say okay why is everybody jumping over the eaten fire claims and not the Palisades fire claims because you know the Palisades appeared to burn as well and how can you just place the eaten fire blame on Edison while a whole another area of Los Angeles Burns and apparently there there's nobody responsible yeah so in the Palisade fires we literally had like a fire hurricane a perfect storm 100 mph winds and it looks like a backyard or firework fire that wasn't completely put down there's still Embers of like January 1st or 2nd to just ignited and it was devastating and you know just to give you an assessment so this is the palisad it's close to the water close to Malibu this is it's an it's a fire risk over in that area a lot of insurers pulled out because it was so fir prone conversely if you go several miles past Los Angeles into pad Al TOA

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

I'm reviewing people's insurance policies they rated that a zero fire risk zero out of 10 on these insurance policies was a zero risk this was never supposed to happen so the difference is you we all had extremely high winds Edison warned many times about their equipment about the dry brush they need to clear because it's around their power lines they did not respond I mean I've seen some of the responses and it's disgusting what they did and one spark a giant spark happens immediately ignites the brush you have severely high winds and it just burned an entire Community wow about a year ago I made a video about some wildfires occurring in Texas and we dove into the power company's failure to maintain equipment update it I mean you would literally have power poles that were near a 100 years old it's crazy do you know yet whether or not it was old equipment or was it a failure to manage vegetation do you have any any Theory so far on what exactly the underlying issue with the equipment was I will bet you would be both of those things it would be old faulty equipment that is decades old and also not clearing the brush and the vegetation I mean these are things look they they've caused fires like this before the Thompson fire like it's like learn your lesson right um I was over a homeowner's property you know helping with the emotional toll documenting her story and she showed me that they had put up a brand new power pole and power lines in the days after this fire brand new and it's like how were you guys able to do this after the fact but you didn't do it when you were worn so many times in an area where you know this can ignite right um so it's they have deliberately decided to put profits over people and not spend the money they need to update all of this old faulty equipment maybe put some power lines underground I mean it's expensive but maybe things would be safer that way right I mean or at least update them or clear the brush so this litigation is going to be expensive too yeah I they're going to have several billion dollars that they're going to pay at the end of this I'm confident about that okay so duty if you are a utility company because they are not a public utility company they are a private utility company that's correct and that is see that's the biggest I see so many people saying well this is going to end up coming out of our pocket taxpayer pocket incorrect utility company has a duty to maintain power lines safe safely and so they don't cause harm they breach that Duty when their fire lines combusted either due to overgrown vegetation or a lack of Maintenance or a combination of both in combination with a series of weather events that were highly conducive to fires in which they were warned about and they could have taken proactive measures to mitigate at the risk causation you of the opinion that but for the power line sparking the fires would not have spread throughout the canyon that's correct 100% correct okay so that lays down the foundation for negligence let's talk about damages what have you seen I know you spoke Broly that briefly that you have been there you have been on the scene what are you seeing with your own eyes I mean I've been there like several times my you know friends family co-workers their entire property everything they've ever owned turned to Ash think about what would you grab somebody says the fire's coming you got to get out of here in 10 minutes this is the reality people grabbing passports photo albums anything they could one of my friends had like an old the original Hummers and it's all gone melted he had a watch collection everything turned Ash and I've been documenting a lot of my social media just what we're seeing and it is it's like 30 blocks of just chimneys and Ash it's the only thing that remains the houses where they shot 90210 they're all gone this area is not wealthy celebrity types these are people that have been there for Generations these are 1920s 1930s homes you know we have a lot of black Americans that live there that have generation wealth because they originally pushed them to Altadena and said this is the only place that you can own property there's actually 80% of the black families in Altadena owned their property there and took pride in it now it's now they have nothing they're severely underinsured if they have insurance at a valuation that was many years ago and it's just family ear looms everything lost I mean if you went through there you would not believe that this is America okay can we talk about the insurance issue because I'm just making assumptions based on what I'm reading online I don't know if the public necessarily understands that you don't need to have insurance this is a thirdparty claim against a third party if somebody was in Altadena and maybe they didn't even own property but were injured in the fire maybe they were burned or got killed I think the death count that I read on the intro to this was 17 I'm sure it's climbed by the time that

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

this video is coming out let's go into damages I mean are you so you're obviously representing homeowners are you representing any individuals who have personal injury claims at this time yes there's one woman who's in she's on life support and I don't it doesn't look good for her very sad I represent some nurses that were at one of the medical facilities and I it was on one of the front page of the LA Times she was the one that was pushing an elderly gentleman out in a wheelchair that get across the street to 7-Eleven they all have like severe respiratory issues um and personal injuries that that's done from this I mean the air up there is just terrible I mean you're going to see a lot more of that toxic exposure too I mean these are old homes you have asbestos in the air you have aluminum you have all these metals that are just floating around so no it doesn't matter if you have insurance paid you still go after Edison right because insurance is never going to make you whole Insurance cannot pay you for those human harms those pain and suffering all the stuff the mental anguage the PTSD insurance doesn't cover that Edison's going to pay for all that and all your personal property nobody was over inured for this right I mean we have multi-million dollar homes insured for $500,000 I mean that's never going to make you whole or your personal property whatever amount you had on there there's more value that was lost I have a lot of people that don't have citizenship status that are very afraid they also have equal rights in California you can't even bring that up in the lawsuit whatsoever somebody's citizenship what we're seeing now is we have private developers trying to offer cash for Lots which is totally disgusting it's also illegal I know our attorney general is going after people doing that we're seeing price gouging on rents um which is also illegal and you shouldn't be doing that so people are trying to rebuild right now and they have questions we have to figure out is it safe to clear it yet what's toxic in the air when can you rebuild we're now worked with the governor and local folks they're lifting the restrictions so that you can quickly build no longer delays and permits for the Malibu Palisades area you don't have to deal with a coastal commission to build people are doing those retrofitted homes where you literally can build them and then pop them in um I mean these are fascinating which you can do um I don't think it's the vibe for some of the Altadena folks who have lived in these old historic homes but there's options people are offering um low interest loans there are uh these litigation finance companies that can come in and give you money up front on your case against Edison so you can rebuild faster I say that with caveat because you should ever take out more than you owe I think that these if you're doing that these instance rates have to be capped at a certain amount can I interject I have uh never approved my clients taking litigation financing the interest rates are generally out of this world I actually had one client take it against my advisory opinion and it was a total nightmare yep and it's like take out a dollar today 02 tomorrow that's not and just for anybody listening who might not know what litigation financing is you get in advance on what your claim is worth uh in exchange for that these litigation financing companies charge anywhere from 17 to 20% maybe even more the reason why that they can justify that and it's not user is because technically uh these cases are not guaranteed so they are risking their financial product in the event that the case is lost the person doesn't owe anything on the claim but effectively you know if these cases go on for two three four years everything that is the person's entitled to under the claim gets sweep swept away to the litigation financing company now I know some people who are in litigation finance and they're good people and not to say that there isn't a time in place for it uh I would just you know probably Echo what you're telling your clients to be very careful uh if anybody were to go down that road yeah like some states the C like in Iowa I think you cannot even charge more than 15% but we see ones that are doing literally 200% right in other states yeah what about the situation where somebody is not a property owner and they weren't injured physically however they're forced to evacuate they're forced to move they're forced to incur you know buy a U-Haul and move to another city or across town and buy another lease or those cases all of those are cases so if you're a renter you've lost all your personal property Freedom maybe you're running your business out of your rental home all recoverable against Edis and of course if you're a business owner like if you're a restaurant owner in Altadena and now your restaurant even if your restaurant isn't destroyed if it was saved by the fire but now all of your customer base is non-existent because nobody lives there you can make a loss of business Interruption claim as well I'm sure yeah and that's like there's also like the city municipalities like they're also reaching out because they also have rights against Edison

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) [15:00]

because they had property loss they had to use resources that they otherwise not would have had right we had used have taxpayer dollers because of something Edison did wrongfully yeah in all those situations if you've had to evacuate if any type of harm I mean it's all going to be damages based off of what your losses are and I truly believe that Edison's going to have to pay for all of that and with the inverse condemnation is you also get attorney fees on top of that so we also tell Edison to pay the 25% contingency fee going against them on top of all that they owe as well um under that provision so here come the am ambulance Chaser comments in the section I know you said something very interesting that I don't know if uh non- plaintiff's lawyers would pick up in that last sentence you said we're going to try to go after attorney's fees so Edison has to pay for our 25% now I don't know about you but normally depending on the case attorney's fees are between 33 and 40% but you are charg 25% in this particular situation yes and so when this first happened we saw a lot of national firms Target victims and we're signing them up for 40% 4 Z on everything from insurance recoveries to third party liability which I think is totally inappropriate I mean this is our very it's crazy let's go into that too Insurance Recovery and I have a story about this about my time in Louisiana I did you know probably a thousand cases in Louisiana after Hurricane Laura hurricane Delta hurricane Ida I generally told people to not sign up with a lawyer or public adjuster until they got just fed up with dealing with their insurance corre meaning the insurance carrier is unless they're just a totally heartless soulless monster which some of them are but if somebody has a million dollars worth of damage and they are owed a million most of the time the insurance carrier without the help of anyone will pay at least half of it you might have a problem getting the second half of it but it's uh it's not in the best interest of the client if they engage somebody whether that be a lawyer or a public adjuster at the very beginning because then that lawyer or public adjustor is going to be getting a percentage of funds recovered that the client would have otherwise just recovered correct like you said that should all just be free work where we that's why we have the probo a list of lawyers I think there's over 100 that signed up for it and they will literally just ghost write tell people look at their policies tell them ghost write the letters to their insurance company so that they pay and they actually have to pay 30% upfront no questions asked and then look and evaluate everything what I'm seeing a lot of these carriers you just send them your photograph of the property to show it's destroyed and they say okay here we're going to pay you everything right but there are going to be situations where the insurance company does jerk people around um so far it seems okay but there are going to be litigation for insurance carriers that are not doing the right thing that these are going to be what we call those first party claims which then if they that's probably when you do need a lawyer I don't I do not do those cases personally those are different types of Specialties and I know you've done those but these are for anybody who's listening who might be wanting to look up a lawyer who needs that again my recommendation would be only after you have exhausted all resource internally but you're going to want to Google a first party insurance lawyer Bob is a third party lawyer he sues third parties you're going to want a first party insurance lawyer so you are not doing those cases if somebody has an insurance policy and they sign up with you you're not taking a piece of that you're going to help them out pro bono get them the resources they need you are solely focused on the third party claim that's correct and what we do is like when people call and have a first party claim and they it reaches past the process where the insurance company did not do the right thing I'll us you to refer them I think myself as like the general counsel for these folks and try to find the best options for them a lot of these lawyers are going to do them for 10% going after the insurance companies again the local lawyers are banding together to make sure that people aren't gouged on it and it will be a fight but a lot of really good firms are going to do it for 10% to fight those insurance companies if they do not do the right thing but it should be free up until that point yep agreed we don't need to rehash it but I agree there will be a minimum amount of money that just gets distributed whether or not a lawyer public adjustor is involved a lot of lawyers in republ addressers don't like that statement but it's uh it's true um okay so the inverse condemnation claim what you're alleging is that SoCal Edison's essentially their negligence even though it's not a negligence claim results in what is a fifth amendment taking under the Constitution yes does apply to a private entity yeah so it's not only Fifth Amendment but there's local I mean we have statutes here that also like codify uh inverse

### Segment 5 (20:00 - 23:00) [20:00]

condemnation that have attorney fees tied to it as well so um yeah there's that's the ask is in there it's in the pleadings and look it's one of those things where I would highly doubt Edison would ever want this in a courtroom I mean I have already started like mapping out my opening and closing statements because I would salivate to try these cases against them hold them accountable but at the end of the day I truly believe that they're going to pull together enough money to fully compensate people above and beyond and then we put the attorney's fees on top of that with the condemnation and it becomes a negotiation and a lot of these folks who are harmed just I want you to know that you control your case you get to decide if you settle or not and it's your in-pocket recovery number that has to feel right um I'm about the sense that we do all these cases on an individual by individual basis and they all have unique and individual losses some people try to lump everybody together and certain brackets and I think that is totally inappropriate cuz everybody's property is unique everybody's personal property proper was unique and everybody's losses are the same um so that's where my mindset is with these and that's why we've been doing a lot of media with people and interviewing them showing the human harms that were lost because I want to show that to Edison and show the world uh what's really going on wow okay am I am I missing anything else that the people should know I the timeline I think is going to be 18month to two-year battle against Edison um I think what people need right now I mean while we're shooting this at the end of January here is just help with resources help with like what do I do next how do I build how do I make sure I'm not taking advantage of what do I do to clear my property um those are kind of the questions that people need to have answers for and I think if any lawyers out there that's listening you can reach out to anybody involved there there's like we're literally having volunteers to do sifting of properties where like have a pro bono list people just need their insurance compan or their insurance stuff looked after right there's a lot you can do to help regardless of where you are in the world and uh Bob I'm going to put the pro bono list at on the description of this video as well as every time you bring it up and Bob if people want to reach out to you where can they find you um easiest way actually is on Instagram if you go to Planet Fun Bob literally just DM me Planet Fun Bob and I will respond I mean you could see a lot of the videos that I put up about the fires and I try to make the new cycle not turn cuz it's very personal to you know personal to me um like one of my best friends his son who I've known since he was a kid like their house burned to ashes but he had just passed the bar it was like our law clerk had just passed the bar had just bought his suit that still have price tags on them and it's all gone and he had you know two younger siblings and we were there last week when they saw the came back to the property for the first time and it's just heartbreaking man to see your home destroyed like that and yeah I mean to say I'm pissed is an understatement but you know we channel that anger into something good don't we Tom yeah that's right okay all right Bob well I really appreciate your time and information hopefully some somebody watching this or listening to this can take it and um go andove their situation because of it um yeah and if anybody reaches out let me know that you reached out through Tom because if you for those who don't know Tom I know him as being the best general counsel is finding anybody that has an issue he knows the specialist that will take care of it so reach out to Tom directly cuz we all know a lot of the people that are working on these cases and he'll make sure that you guys are fully protected all right everybody thanks for watching bye