Every Fire Survivor’s Network and Consumer Watchdog say the amended SB 492 announced Saturday leaves survivors’ right to sue utilities intact
By PASADENA NOW
Two advocacy groups that organized Eaton Fire survivors against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wildfire liability proposals said Saturday that newly published amendments to Senate Bill 492 preserve survivors’ right to hold utilities accountable in court.
Every Fire Survivor’s Network and Consumer Watchdog issued that assessment in a press release Saturday hours after Newsom and legislative leaders announced the agreement.
The measure, which lawmakers are scheduled to vote on Tuesday, carries direct weight in Altadena, epicenter of the Eaton Fire.
Survivors from the community became a visible force in the campaign against the governor’s plan, and ramped up their presence in Sacramento over the past week.
The groups said the amended bill does not cap the economic or noneconomic damages survivors may recover, does not deny recovery to smoke-damage survivors outside what the release called an artificial fire-perimeter line, and does not limit insurance companies’ right to recover from utilities.
It also does not limit contingency fees for attorneys representing individual survivors, their release said.
SB 492 would instead establish a fast-pay program the groups described as intended to help survivors receive compensation more quickly. Under the published text, a survivor’s lawsuit would be stayed only after discovery proceedings, and then only until 45 days after the claimant submits a completed claim to the fast-pay administrator.
“Survivors from across California came to Sacramento and asked our elected representatives to stand with the people whose homes, communities and lives have been devastated,” Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, said in the release. “They listened.”
Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, said in the same release that “Senate and Assembly leaders protected Californians’ rights and refused to make families pay for fires caused by utilities.”
Newsom, who had sought broader changes, called the agreement incomplete.
“This system needs full structural reform — not a partial one,” he said in a statement Saturday, urging lawmakers to return to the issue next year.
Wildfire Victims First, a utility-backed campaign that had pushed for the changes Newsom sought, said further structural reform is needed “to ensure a fair recovery system,” spokesperson Nathan Click said.
Lawmakers cannot vote until the amended text has been in print 72 hours. Every Fire Survivor’s Network said it will press the Legislature in January on what it calls the unresolved question: preventing the next utility-caused fire.
