Skip Links

Law360 (February 11, 2025)– A victim of the recent devastating Eaton Fire in Altadena has told a California state judge that Southern California Edison and its attorneys should face sanctions for allegedly concealing efforts to reenergize electrical transmission lines while the blaze was still burning last month.

The argument came in a reply brief filed Monday by plaintiffs’ firm Edelson PC on behalf of Altadena resident Evangeline Iglesias, whose lawsuit is among more than 70 cases in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging SoCal Edison’s utility equipment ignited the Eaton Fire that killed 17 people and destroyed more than 9,000 structures. SoCal Edison says it’s cooperating fully with fire investigators, but that the blaze’s origin is still unknown.

Iglesias is seeking to convert Judge Ashfaq G. Chowdhury’s temporary restraining order, which requires SoCal Edison to preserve evidence in the Eaton Canyon fire origin area, into a longer-lasting preliminary injunction. Iglesias said Monday the request is made more dire by SoCal Edison’s Feb. 6 regulatory filing revealing, for the first time, that the utility reenergized transmission lines in the area on Jan. 19.

“SCE never alerted plaintiff’s counsel to this alteration or that it had caused electrical arcing. Nor did SCE disclose these facts to the court,” Iglesias said. “To the contrary, SCE and its lawyers repeatedly told the court — in an effort to avoid the temporary restraining order — that these critical transmission lines were already being preserved, that any work on those lines would be disclosed, and that there was nothing to worry about.” Read more here.