RFK Jr Adds Boeing To Woolsey Fire Defendants

The Boeing Corporation is partly responsible for the devastating fire that destroyed western Malibu.

That’s the contention by lawyer Robert F Kennedy Junior … filed in a lawsuit yesterday in Los Angeles.

Boeing owns the Santa Susana Field Lab … a former rocket testing facility 20 miles north of Malibu that was the place where the fire ignited on November 8th.

The lawsuit filed by Robert F Kennedy Junior’s law firm alleges that Boeing and Southern California Edison failed to protect the public from the threat that fire posed at the Santa Susana Field Lab.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the lawsuit also claims that Edison should have preemptively shut off power to mitigate the fire risk on a dry, windy day.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, appears to be the first involving the Woolsey fire to name Boeing as a defendant.

Other lawsuits have naturally targeted Edison … but this is apparently the first to also go after Boeing.

Boeing told the Los Angeles Times that the company’s security and firefighting employees at Santa Susana were first on the scene of the fire… and promptly called in outside fire agencies when the blaze broke out on their land. 

Boeing also noted that it is “fully cooperating” with investigations by Cal Fire and the California Public Utilities Commission.

The lawsuit refers to the L-A Times investigation of the fie … which found that first efforts to put out the fire at an Edison switching station on the Boeing test site were hampered by a lack of water at the field lab.

The lawsuit also calls out Boeing for having “failed to have an adequate fire prevention program or have adequately trained fire suppression personnel in place.”

The LA Times reported today that Boeing maintains a fire station at the Santa Susana Field Lab.

Boeing bought the Santa Susana Field Lab in 1996 … when it acquired Rockwell International’s aerospace business.

Former firefighters who worked at the facility through the 1980s told The Times that the field lab used to have a robust, well-trained firefighting team and about six firefighting apparatus, including two brush rigs, along with at least one ambulance.

But the company would not tell The Times how many firefighters work at the fire station there now.

It must be pointed out that the state has not yet assessed blame for the Woolsey Fire.

The addition of Boeing as a co-defendant is of huge significance to Malibu fire victims.

If the state or the courts find Boeing partly responsible … it could mean that the payment of damages could be spread between Boeing and Southern California Edison …. in court cases that are sure to last for years and years.

LA Times article: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-woolsey-fire-boeing-lawsuit-20190205-story.html