Corral Canyon Fire Survivors File Lawsuit against the State

• Complaint Alleges Park Officials Allowed Fire’s Start

BY BILL KOENEKER

Corral Canyon residents, whose homes were destroyed or damaged in the 2007 fire that torched their area last year, filed a lawsuit against the state last week.
“We filed two causes of action,” said James Devitt, who has teamed up with the well-known firm of Engstrom Lipscomb and Lack to take on California.
The lawsuit accuses the state, which owns Malibu Creek State Park, where the fire started during a party in “the cave,” of allowing a dangerous condition and creating a nuisance. There is no mention in the lawsuit about how much damages the plaintiffs seek. Devitt said they have filed claims worth $472 million.
“It is not a class action suit. We call it mass action,” added Devitt.
The state has 30 days to respond to the complaint, and Devitt said it will probably file a demurrer.
The complaint alleges that canyon residents, concerned about the frequency of parties and bonfires in the cave and surrounding areas, notified the state on multiple occasions in the years and months before the 2007 fire.
The complaint goes on to allege the state did not take appropriate measures to reduce the fire risk.
The legal brief points out that the state is mandated by its own policies that “every reasonable precaution shall be taken to reduce or eliminate existing and potential hazardous, dangerous and defective conditions, if any, which are sources of injury to persons and property. It was reasonably foreseeable that uncontrolled access to the cave and surrounding areas presented substantial risk of injury to surrounding properties, given known regular late-night parities and bonfires in this area of the park. The dangerous condition of the state property as described herein was a substational factor in causing the Corral Fire and the damages and losses suffered by plaintiffs as a result of the fire.”
The lawsuit alleges officials allowed the fire hazard to persist despite the state’s knowledge that “the seriousness of the hazard outweighed the social utility of allowing the condition to remain as it was.” Hence, the dangerous condition of the state property as described was a substantial factor in causing the fire, which was responsible for destroying, or severely damaging, the canyon residents’ homes, according to the complaint.
“We feel we have both elements covered, and we are prepared to follow that up to the end of an appeal,” Devitt added.
The Malibu attorney said Engstrom Lipscomb and Lack is not only well known in legal circles. In the film “Erin Brockovich,” small-town local attorney Ed Masry enlists a large plaintiff’s law firm. In real life, as in the movie, he turns to Walter Lack.
Notwithstanding the film’s focus on Brockovich, in real life it was the expertise of Lack and his colleagues, as many in the legal community will attest to, that powered the successful outcome of the true story.