The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center sued Southern California Edison on Tuesday, alleging that the power company is responsible for starting last year’s Eaton fire, which destroyed the congregation’s sanctuary, a preschool and other buildings.
“Our congregation has been without a physical home for over a year, at a time when our members are in dire need of refuge and healing,” Chief Rabbi Joshua Ratner said in a statement. “Although we continue to come together and support each other, the loss is deeply felt.”
David Eisenhauer, a spokesman for Edison, said the company will respond to the complaint through the court process.
“Our hearts go out to the people affected by the Eaton fire,” Eisenhauer said. “We are committed to wildfire mitigation through grid resilience, situational awareness and improved operational practices.”
The temple had served hundreds of Jewish families since 1941. Members of the congregation were able to keep little more than their sacred Torah scrolls.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that Edison failed to follow its own safety protocols despite advance warnings of extremely dangerous red flag conditions in an area known to be at high risk for wildfires.
The complaint points to the agency’s failure to turn off power lines that night, and its decision to leave a defunct line without power for decades.
It also cites a Times investigation that found Edison had fallen behind on maintenance repairs it told state regulators were needed and began paying customers.
“SCE’s backlog of maintenance work and unspent repair funds indicate that there was a substantial opportunity for the electrical infrastructure that contributed to the Eaton Fire to be improperly inspected, maintained, repaired and otherwise operated, leading to the ignition of the Eaton Fire,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit seeks financial compensation for the destruction of the campus, as well as injunctive relief intended to prevent Edison from causing more wildfires in the future.
A state investigation into the cause of the fire has not been released.
Pedro Pizarro, the CEO of Edison International, which is the parent company of this company, said that leading theory that a hundred-year-old, dormant transmission line in Eaton Canyon was briefly energized that night, causing sparks that ignited the fire.
Edison is already facing hundreds of lawsuits from fire victims, as well as one from the US Department of Justice. Application giving compensation to victims who agree to waive their right to sue the company for fire.
Under California law, most of those payments, as well as lawsuit settlements, are expected to be covered by a the bag of the kingdom of wildfire what lawmakers created to protect the three largest utilities from collecting if their equipment catches a catastrophic fire. Some wildfire victims say the law has gone too far and does not hold the services responsible for their errors.
The Temple case describes how investigators found Edison devices to have caused several wildfires over the past 10 years, including the Round Fire in 2015, the Rey Fire in 2016, the Thomas, Creek, and Rye fires in 2017, and the Woolsey Fire in 2018.
Investigators also determined that Edison’s electrical wiring sparked the 2022 Fairview fire, which killed two people.
