The 2025 California wildfires created almost unprecedented wrongs… the wrongs may keep piling up until at least 2075.

Ubi jus ibi remedium. Where there’s a wrong, there’s a remedy. This legal axiom is the basis of the dozens of lawsuits that have been filed against various entities who, according to the plaintiffs, share responsibility for starting the 2025 California wildfires. The major lawsuits filed so far are outlined below.

The 2025 California wildfires created almost unprecedented wrongs. They burned thousands of acres and damaged or destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. We may not know the full extent of these wrongs for at least fifty years. The burning buildings created a huge cloud of smoke that blanketed much of Southern California. This cloud was laced with lead, asbestos, and many other toxins. So, the wrongs may keep piling up until at least 2075.

Ubi jus ibi remedium basically means nothing happens by accident. That’s especially true of a widespread disaster like the 2025 California wildfires. Legal actions pinpoint the responsible people and hold them accountable for their negligence. More importantly, only legal actions compensate the victims of these disasters.

Current Litigation

The lawsuits, most of which are pending in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura Counties, name various defendants and rest upon several legal doctrines.

SCE Negligence

Substantial evidence indicates that Southern California Edison, one of the area’s largest electrical power providers, negligently maintained power lines, towers, transformers, and other electrical system infrastructure.

One of the latest “smoking guns” involves M16T1, a tower which had been inactive for more than fifty years. Shortly before the fires broke out, Southern California Edison (SCE) recorded a fault on this power line which is located just a few miles away from Eaton Canyon.

Further evidence of SCE’s negligence may be its delay in shutting off power to the area. The fires began in the first week of January, 2025. Soon, over thirty fires were raging through the area. Yet SCE refused to cut (re-energize) power to the affected area for approximately three weeks.

The next day, a California judge ordered SCE to keep the power off in certain areas for at least twenty-one days, preserve critical infrastructure near the fire’s origin, and produce information concerning allegations that the company is destroying or concealing evidence.

Most of this information is under seal, as the judge expressed concern about making discovery records public at such an early stage. 

Significantly, SCE is a public utility which operates with a monopoly guaranteed by the California Public Utilities Commission, which has the exclusive power to refuse to issue certificates of public convenience and necessity to permit potential competition to enter the market.

The aforementioned evidence and behavior could convince a jury that SCE negligently caused the 2025 California wildfires. In that case, the company could be liable for a staggering amount of damages.

Many negligence lawsuits against SCE also cite violations of Section 2106 of the Public Utilities Code (exemplary damages if the negligent act or omission was wilful), and Section 13007 of the Health and Safety Code (individual liability for any person who “wilfully, negligently, or in violation of law” causes fire-related damage.

Landlord Actions

When a disaster occurs, many people try to take advantage of the situation for financial gain. Price-gouging gas stations are probably the best example.

Immediately following the outbreak of the 2025 California wildfires, some area landlords increased rent by over 200 percent. In response, California lawmakers capped rent increases at 10 percent for thirty days. 

On February 25, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, a tenant advocacy group, filed an action against six Southern California landlords who allegedly increased rent in violation of this emergency order.

Inverse Condemnation

This doctrine, which is unique to California and similar to negligence per se, holds public utility companies, such as SCE, liable for wildfire damage as a matter of law.

The City of Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power is the primary defendant in these inverse condemnation claims. Plaintiffs basically argue that LADWP’s mismanagement of water resources contributed to the fires. In an inverse condemnation claim, contributing to a problem is basically the same thing as causing that problem.

Lawsuits often point to the controversial Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades. Shortly before construction began in the late 1960s, LADWP officials cited the need for a water supply to combat fires on the south slopes of the nearby Santa Monica mountains. But officials drained the reservoir in February 2024, citing contamination concerns. 

With this nine-acre, 117,000,000-gallon reservoir out of commission, firefighters were unable to quickly contain the 2025 California wildfires.

Public Nuisance

Pursuant to California Civil Code Section 3480, a public nuisance is any activity which “affects, at the same time, an entire community or neighborhood, or any considerable number of persons, although the extent of the annoyance or damage inflicted upon individuals may be unequal.” 

This provision, and its equivalent in the penal code (Section 372) usually involves neighborhood nuisances, like barking dogs, loud parties, and trash piles.

However, these laws could also apply to wildfire damage. Possible defendants include SCE, the LADWP, and the California Public Utilities Commission. 

Public nuisance is similar to the common law doctrine of trespass, which is an act or omission which interferes with an owner’s quiet enjoyment of property. This doctrine has been successfully used in similar mass tort claims, most notably the 1997 Fen-Phen settlement, 1998 tobacco settlement, and various opioid epidemic settlements.