San Bruno Gas Explosion

Though PG&E previously admitted liability for the explosion and stated that it was "committed" to fully compensating its victims, PG&E has asked the court to throw certain of plaintiffs’ claims out of court. In particular, PG&E has asked the court to throw out all the plaintiffs’ claim for punitive damages, and to throw out certain

At today’s court hearing, Judge Dylina tentatively selected the cases to be included in the trial that is scheduled to begin against PG&E on July 23:

  • Bullis v. PG&EPG&E Gas Explosion Cases
  • Estate of Franco v. PG&E
  • Ruigomez v. PG&E
  • Low v. PG&E
  • Zapata v. PG&E
  • Healy v. PG&E
  • Chea  v. PG&E
  • Viscarra v. PG&E

The judge will

On July 2, 2012, trial will begin in 16 San Bruno Explosion cases. The Court ordered that the cases to be tried first will be representative of the following eight categories of lawsuits that have been filed:

  1. Wrongful death
  2. Serious bodily injury which required hospitalization.
  3. Minor bodily injury which required some medical treatment and total

PG&E had the perfect opportunity to stand up in court and take responsibility for what it has done to the people of San Bruno.  Instead, when it filed its written answer to the victims’ lawsuits, it denied everything, and blamed everyone else, including its victims. PG&E stated that it should not be required to compensate

PG&E filed today its answer to the lawsuits brought by the victims of the San Bruno fire. This was PG&E’s first opportunity, legally speaking, to publicly account for itself in court.

PG&E owned up to nothing.  Instead, the document lists the 32 reasons why PG&E says it is not responsible for the fire and the