SAN FRANCISCO, Feb.
13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Calaveras County Board of
Supervisors voted unanimously to retain the national law firm of
Baron & Budd and the California Fire Lawyers to initiate litigation
against PG&E for its role in causing the Butte Fire. The
Board's decision marks the next important step towards recovering
"millions upon millions of taxpayer losses" from Pacific Gas &
Electric Co. (NYSE: PCG) which the County of Calaveras sustained in the destructive 2015
Butte Fire.
The County has been working with a premier team of top national
experts to understand the total amount the County has suffered from
this large-scale disaster. Collecting numbers and supporting
data in order to determine the amount of damages from a 70,000+
acre fire is a tremendous undertaking and the County and its team
has calculated the County's damages, evaluated and has pursued
various legal avenues to secure compensation from PG&E and
actively participated in confidential settlement negotiations.
Early in recovery from the Butte Fire, the County announced that
it had lost—and will continue to lose—tens of millions of dollars
in lost taxpayer funds, damaged infrastructure, fire suppression
costs, government employee overtime, emergency response and
recovery efforts, injury to natural resources, and other
significant losses. Since the County will forever be scarred
and socially and economically damaged, the County has worked to
secure fair compensation for its residents and seek reimbursement
for the damage to Calaveras County
and its local infrastructure from PG&E, which is responsible
for this tragedy.
"The County, its residents, and the taxpayers have endured
devastating losses in the wake of these fires," said Board Chairman
Gary Tofanelli, "and this legal
action is an important step towards taxpayer protection and
recovery, and towards helping our communities rebuild."
The County is vigilant and working with an exceptional expert
team and are determined to give the people of Calaveras the best possible chance to rebuild
and recover from this devastation. It is PG&E's
responsibility to make this right.
Baron & Budd, P.C. is a national law firm, retained by
public entities over 425 times for litigation and trial. The
California Fire Lawyers includes
multiple law firms: Baron & Budd, Singleton Law Firm, Thorsnes
Bartolotta McGuire, Dixon Diab &
Chambers, and Terry Singleton, Esq.,
California Fire Lawyers has also
been retained by the Counties of Sonoma and Napa for claims related to the wine county
fires.
For more information, please contact Baron & Budd
Shareholder John Fiske at Fiske@BaronBudd.com.
CONTACT: Timothy Lutz, PIO
Phone: (209) 754-6025
Email: tlutz@co.calaveras.ca.us
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content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/calaveras-county-intends-to-file-lawsuit-against-pge-to-recover-millions-in-taxpayer-losses-from-the-2015-butte-fire-300598389.html
SOURCE The Calaveras County
Board of Supervisors