LA County Judge Says Class-Action Lawsuit Over Palisades Fire Can Proceed

This week an LA County judge ruled that a lawsuit against the city brought by plaintiffs impacted by the Palisades fire could go forward.

The ruling from Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Samantha Jester means the state and city could be found liable for tens of billions of dollars in damages, at a time when both are scrambling to close budget deficits.

“The city is already financially distressed,” Alex “Trey” Robertson, the lead attorney on the case representing thousands of fire victims, told The California Post.

“Mayor Bass is running for reelection, and this is the last thing she needs. Once further evidence of the cover-up of what actually happened and caused this fire comes to light, it’s gonna be a really bad day for Karen Bass.”

The lawsuit in question was filed months ago and initially focused on the city’s failure to keep a large reservoir above the Palisades filled. The reservoir had been drained to repair a tear in its cover and it was completely empty at the time of the fire. That resulted in firefighters running out of water at hydrants in a matter of hours. The lawsuit alleges that the city failed to inspect the cover over the reservoir and that its own procedures should have allowed for the cover to be repaired without draining it and leaving it empty for months.

 Another element of the lawsuit involves how the Palisades fire started. It’s now widely believed that a previous fire, known as the Lachman fire was started by an arsonist named Jonathan Rinderknecht one week prior to the Palisades fire. It was put out but reports published by the LA Times last October indicate that firefighters who put it out were told to pack up and leave the area before finishing the job.

Firefighters mopping up a small brush fire that authorities say reignited as the Palisades fire five days later were ordered to leave the original burn scene even though they complained the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch, according to firefighter text messages reviewed by The Times.

To the firefighters’ surprise, their battalion chief ordered them to roll up their hoses and pull out of the area on Jan. 2 — the day after the 8-acre blaze was declared contained — rather than stay and make sure there were no hidden embers that could spark a new fire, the text messages said…

In one text message, a firefighter who was at the scene on Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave the burn scar unprotected because of the visible signs of smoldering terrain. “And the rest is history,” the firefighter wrote in recent weeks.

There is really no doubt at this point that the deadly Palisades fire was what firefighters call a “rekindle” of that earlier fire. It happened because, a) the Lachman fire was still smoldering under the ground and b) strong winds a few days later turned the embers into flames. That Palisades fire that arose would go on to burn down several thousand structures and kill 12 people. 

Despite this, the interim chief for the LAFD explicitly denied the fire was a rekindle and claimed it was a “holdover fire.” A holdover fire is one in which fire remains deep underground and would be difficult to detect from the surface. Here’s how Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva described it last October.

“Holdover fires can be nearly impossible to detect with infrared imaging, as smoldering often occurs deep below the surface, especially in chaparral terrain where dense root systems conceal residual heat. Under extreme winds, low humidity, and prolonged drought, these fires can reignite despite full suppression and containment efforts. The January 7 fire was not a rekindle or due to failed suppression but the reactivation of an undetectable holdover fire under extraordinary wind conditions.”

This is completely at odds with what the firefighters on the scene last January saw. It looks like a transparent attempt by the city to avoid responsibility and lawsuuits stemming from their own failure to put out the Lachman fire. Several of those firefighters have been deposed for the lawsuit but the city has moved to block the release of their depositions.

Attorneys for the city of Los Angeles moved this week to block the release of long-awaited depositions of firefighters that could provide a deeper understanding of their decisions and actions in the days leading up to the deadly Palisades fire.

The attorneys representing the city in a lawsuit brought by Palisades fire victims invoked a general protective order the parties agreed to in June, which allows any side to designate all or part of any testimony in the case as confidential for up to 30 days…

As their examinations were wrapping up, attorneys representing the city said they were provisionally designating both depositions confidential under the protective order, according to Alexander “Trey” Robertson, who is representing fire victims.

“It’s clear they’re trying to put a blanket of silence over these firefighters’ depositions,” Robertson said. “It’s just a delay tactic to try to keep it shielded from the public.”

In short, the cover-up of this failure continues. The current LAFD chief has already admitted that an after-action report on the Palisades fire watered down its conclusions. A copy of it went to the Mayor’s office before it was published and a recent report says Mayor Bass was the person requesting revisions designed to help the city avoid lawsuits. Bass denies it.

In any case, the fact that this lawsuit will move forward is good news. Eventually the truth is going to come out and the abject failure of the city and the attempt to cover up that failure is going to be revealed. That’s probably going to result in a huge payout to plaintiffs in this case but at this point it’s hard to see how they don’t deserve it.

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