Edison International and its Southern California subsidiary drew criticism from Eaton Fire victims’ attorneys on Tuesday over a newly filed cross-complaint that seeks to shift some responsibility for losses onto public agencies, emergency responders and water providers.
Two attorneys representing individual plaintiffs in the coordinated cases called the cross-claims a familiar blame-spreading delay tactic, while Edison's outside counsel called the filing a standard step in utility wildfire litigation aimed at ensuring all potentially responsible parties are at the table.
Although Edison, in court, has denied that its equipment started the Jan. 7 Eaton Canyon fire, the utility has also rolled out a voluntary, out-of-court wildfire recovery compensation program for victims who prefer not to wait for litigation to play out.
“Our hearts and minds are certainly with those impacted by this fire," Hueston Hennigan LLP partner Douglas J. Dixon said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “But recognizing that we are in litigation, we feel that all parties who bear responsibility for the extent of harm should participate in the litigation and should be held accountable for their actions — and equally important, their inactions — that led to the harm caused by the Eaton fire."
Dixon called Edison's cross-complaint, which was filed just before a Jan. 16 deadline set by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Laura A. Seigle, “a very typical legal mechanism" in complex litigation and said it was not strategically filed at the last minute.
However, Singleton Schreiber LLP managing partner Gerald B. Singleton, co-lead liaison for individual plaintiffs in the coordinated proceeding, framed the cross-complaint as a tactical move to complicate the case and pressure victims.
"The main concern we have is that it appears to be an attempt to delay the case," Singleton said in a phone interview Tuesday, citing the judge's deadline and saying Edison filed "at the absolute eleventh hour."
"It's not like the facts that they're talking about haven't been known for close to a full year," Singleton continued. “There's certainly nothing illegal about doing that, but it certainly leads us to believe that what they're doing is trying to get a delay in the trial."
The Eaton Fire cases remain in discovery, with a jury trial currently scheduled for a year from now, Jan. 25, 2027.
Edison's cross-complaint targets a mix of county and municipal entities, emergency response agencies, an evacuation-alert vendor and several local water providers, as the utility seeks to apportion fault and obtain equitable indemnity and contribution for alleged post-ignition failures that it contends worsened the losses. Gursey v. Southern California Edison et al., 25STCV00731 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Jan. 13, 2025).
Wisner Baum LLP partner Ari S. Friedman, an attorney representing some of the individual Eaton Fire victims, echoed Singleton's view and called the cross-claims "suspicious."
“Edison will undoubtedly use these filings as a pretext to argue they cannot be ready for the January 2027 trial date and will most likely seek to delay the trial for that reason," Friedman wrote in an email.
“Edison's cross-complaints are tellingly not about the ignition of the fire; instead, it is more about how various public entities or private companies may have contributed to the wildfire's spread and the damage it caused,” Friedman continued.
“The validity of these claims is suspicious; for example, public entities enjoy certain immunities that would insulate them from liability. Since these are largely post-ignition allegations, these seem more like Edison trying to reduce its overall liability by claiming others bear some fault.”
Dixon, for Edison, addressed the utility's timing and assured the filing was driven by diligence — not delay — saying the company filed on the deadline because it spent the preceding weeks investigating, reviewing after-action materials including media reports, and submitting public records requests to ensure proper fact collection.
"The reason we waited until Friday is not so much that we were just waiting. We were instead doing our due diligence ... to make sure we got our facts straight, that we understood everyone in what role they may have played in the harm caused," Dixon said.
“It's a very complex case and this Friday deadline was the deadline in which to bring in cross defendants in order to prepare for that first trial.”
The cross-complaint names Los Angeles County, the county fire and sheriff's departments, Office of Emergency Management, Genasys Inc., Pasadena Sierra Madre, Pasadena Water and Power and several local water entities.
Dixon said the filing is meant to bring in “all parties who bear responsibility" for the alleged harm and allow fault to be allocated based on evidence and expert analysis, potentially “almost on a geographic area by geographic area basis," he said.
One example Dixon pointed to, also alleged in the cross-complaint, involves West Altadena, where Edison claims residents “did not receive a single" evacuation warning until about 3:25 a.m., hours after the fire entered the area, he said.
"Homes were on fire before the residents ever got their first alert. ... And tragically, 18 of the 19 deaths from the Eaton Fire took place in West Altadena," Dixon said.
"So when it comes to the claims brought by the family members and those impacted by those deaths, the public entities and cross-defendants whom we have brought in are going to have much more of a share in the liability and exposure with respect to people in Western Altadena than there would be, if any, in Eastern Altadena. The folks in Eastern Altadena got the evacuation notices. They got out. West Altadena did not."
