Wildfire victims sue former PG&E executives alleging neglect
The complaint filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court is an offshoot of a $13.5 billion settlement that PG&E reached with the wildfire victims while the utility was mired in bankruptcy from January 2019 through June last year. The wildfire victims' lawsuit is seeking to tap into the $200 million to $400 million in liability insurance that PG&E secured for the former executives and board members, said Frank Pitre, the lawyer handling the case. He told The Associated Press that he hopes to resolve the lawsuit within the next year to help wildfire victims still struggling to rebuild their lives. Deems' condemnation is included in the wildfire victims' lawsuit alongside scorching criticism from U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing PG&E's probation in another criminal case. Alsup has repeatedly ripped PG&E for not doing more to maintain its power lines in recent years, including during a court hearing earlier this month cited in the victims' lawsuit.