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Robert A. Julian (SBN 88469)

Cecily A. Dumas (SBN 111449)

BAKER & HOSTETLER LLP

1160 Battery Street, Suite 100

San Francisco, CA 94111

Telephone: 628.208.6434

Facsimile: 310.820.8859

Email: rjulian@bakerlaw.com

Email: cdumas@bakerlaw.com

Eric E. Sagerman (SBN 155496)

David J. Richardson (SBN 168592)

Lauren T. Attard (SBN 320898)

BAKER & HOSTETLER LLP

11601 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1400

Los Angeles, CA 90025-0509

Telephone: 310.820.8800

Facsimile: 310.820.8859

Email: esagerman@bakerlaw.com

Email: drichardson@bakerlaw.com

Email: lattard@bakerlaw.com

David B. Rivkin, Jr. (SBN 394446)

BAKER & HOSTETLER LLP

1050 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 1100

Washington, DC 20036

Telephone: 202.861.1731

Facsimile: 202.861.1783

Email: drivkin@bakerlaw.com

Counsel for The Official Committee of Tort Claimants

UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION

In re:

PG&E CORPORATION

-andPACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC 

COMPANY,

Debtors.

□ Affects PG&E Corporation

□ Affects Pacific Gas and Electric Company

■ Affects both Debtors

*All papers shall be filed in the Lead Case, 

No. 19-30088 (DM)

Bankruptcy Case 

No. 19-30088 (DM)

Chapter 11

(Lead Case)

(Jointly Administered)

RESPONSE BRIEF OF THE OFFICIAL 

COMMITTEE OF TORT CLAIMANTS 

CONCERNING THE APPLICABILITY 

OF INVERSE CONDEMNATION [DKT. 

NO. 4485]

Date: November 19, 2019

Time: 10:00 a.m.

Place: United States Bankruptcy Court

Courtroom 17, 16th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94102

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

I. Preliminary Statement......................................................................................................... 1

II. Introduction......................................................................................................................... 4

III. Background ......................................................................................................................... 6

A. Inverse Condemnation Liability Under California Law ......................................... 6

B. Procedural History .................................................................................................. 8

IV. Argument ............................................................................................................................ 9

A. The Inverse Condemnation Issue Has Already Been Decided ............................... 9

B. PG&E Is Subject to Inverse Condemnation Under Binding California Law........ 12

C. Pacific Bell and Barham are Indistinguishable from This Case ........................... 14

D. Inverse Condemnation Liability Does Not Depend on Entitlement to 

Automatic Cost-Recovery..................................................................................... 18

E. The Evidence Suggests That PG&E Already Has Or Will Be Able to Socialize 

Its Inverse Condemnation Liability....................................................................... 23

F. There Is No “Taking” of PG&E’s Property. ......................................................... 27

1. Monetary Liability Owed to a Third Party Does Not “Take” Property .... 27

2. PG&E’s Takings Argument Is Not Ripe Because the CPUC May 

Allow Recovery of Inverse Condemnation Liability................................ 28

3. PG&E Is not Entitled to Relief That Is Tantamount to an Injunction....... 31

4. Imposing Inverse Condemnation Liability on PG&E Would Not 

Constitute a Taking Under Penn Central .................................................. 32

G. Imposing Inverse Condemnation Liability on PG&E Does Not Violate Due 

Process .................................................................................................................. 33

V. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 35

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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Cases

Abelleira v. District Court of Appeal,

17 Cal.2d 280 (1941) ................................................................................................................ 3

Aetna Life & Cas. Co. v. City of Los Angeles,

170 Cal. App. 3d 865 (1985)..................................................................................................... 7

Albers v. Los Angeles Cty.,

62 Cal. 2d 250 (1965) ....................................................................................................... 22, 35

Am. Triticale, Inc. v. Nytco Servs., Inc.,

664 F.2d 1136 (9th Cir. 1981)................................................................................................. 12

American Tower Corp. v. City of San Diego,

763 F.3d 1035 (9th Cir. 2014)........................................................................................... 13, 14

Ark. Game & Fish Com'n v. United States,

568 U.S. 23 (2012).................................................................................................................. 35

Baker v. Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Auth.,

39 Cal. 3d 862 (1985) ............................................................................................................. 16

Bakke v. Regents of Univ. of California,

18 Cal. 3d 34 (Cal. 1976), aff’d in part, rev’d in part, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)............................ 3

Barham v. S. Cal. Edison Co.,

74 Cal. App. 4th 744 (Cal. Ct. App. 1999) ...................................................................... passim

In re Basave de Guillen,

604 B.R. 826 (BAP 9th Cir. 2019).......................................................................................... 14

Breidart v. S. Pac. Co.,

61 Cal. 2d 659 (1964) ............................................................................................................. 21

Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Dep't of Pub. Serv. Regulation,

763 F.2d 1106 (9th Cir. 1985)................................................................................................. 34

Butte Fire Cases, 

No. JCCP4853, 2018 WL 3371780 (Cal. Super. Ct. Apr. 26, 2018).......................... 16, 22, 23

Campbell v. United States,

932 F.3d 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (unpublished summary order) .............................................. 29

Chabad Lubavitch of the Quad Cities, Inc. v. City of Bettendorf,

389 F. Supp. 3d 590 (S.D. Iowa 2019).................................................................................... 29

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City of Carlsbad v. Rudvalis,

109 Cal. App. 4th 667 (2003).................................................................................................. 18

City of Oroville v. Superior Court,

7 Cal. 5th 1091 (2019) ...................................................................................................... 20, 23

In re City of Stockton,

909 F.3d 1256 (9th Cir. 2018)................................................................................................. 28

Clement v. State Reclamation Bd.,

35 Cal. 2d 628 (1950) ............................................................................................................. 19

Coal Mines Railroad Co. v. Moss, 

23 Cal. 323, 327 (1863) ............................................................................................................ 7

Covington & Lexington Tpk. Rd. Co. v. Sandford,

164 U.S. 578 (1896)................................................................................................................ 30

DM Arbor Court, Ltd. v. City of Houston,

No. Civ. H-18-1884, 2019 WL 4464953 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 18, 2019)..................................... 29

Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch,

488 U.S. 299 (1989)................................................................................................................ 30

Eachus v. Los Angeles Consolidated Electric Railway Co.,

103 Cal. 614 (1894) ............................................................................................................ 7, 16

Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel,

524 U.S. 498 (1998).................................................................................................... 28, 32, 33

Edison Int’l v. Superior Court (Abate),

No. S253094 (Cal. Feb. 20, 2019) ............................................................................................ 9

Edison Int’l v. Superior Ct. (Abate), 

No. B294164 (Cal. Feb. 20, 2019)............................................................................................ 2

Escondido Union Sch. Dist. v. Casa Suenos De Oro, Inc.,

129 Cal. App. 4th 944 (2005).................................................................................................. 19

First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. Cty. of Los Angeles,

482 U.S. 304 (1987)................................................................................................................ 32

In re Foamex International Inc.,

491 B.R. 100 (Bankr. D. Del. 2013) ....................................................................................... 14

FPC v. Hope Nat. Gas Co.,

320 U.S. 591 (1944)................................................................................................................ 31

FPC v. Nat. Gas Pipeline Co.,

315 U.S. 575 (1942)................................................................................................................ 30

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FPC v. Texaco Inc.,

417 U.S. 380 (1974)................................................................................................................ 31

Gay Law Students Ass’n. v. Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co.,

24 Cal. 3d 458 (1979) ................................................................................................. 15, 17, 18

Gurnsey v. Northern California Power Co.

160 Cal. 699 (1911) .................................................................................................................. 7

Gutierrez v. San Bernardino County,

198 Cal. App. 4th 831 (2011).................................................................................................. 22

Harrison v. PG&E Corp.,

No. CGC17563108, 2018 WL 2447104 (May 21, 2018) ............................................. 9, 22, 23

Henrichs v. Valley View Dev.,

474 F.3d 609 (9th Cir. 2007)................................................................................................... 10

Holtz v. Superior Court,

3 Cal. 3d 296 (1970) ............................................................................................... 7, 19, 20, 22

House v. Los Angeles Flood Control Dist.,

25 Cal. 2d 384 (1944) (Traynor, J. concurring)...................................................................... 19

Imen v. Glassford,

201 Cal. App. 3d 898 (1988)................................................................................................... 11

Jersey Cent. Power & Light Co. v. FERC,

810 F.2d 11681 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (en banc) ............................................................................ 31

Kasel v. Remington Arms Co.,

24 Cal. App. 3d 711 (1972)..................................................................................................... 34

In re Kirkland,

915 F.2d 1236 (9th Cir. 1990)..................................................................................... 12, 13, 14

Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, 

139 S. Ct. 2162 (2019)................................................................................................ 29, 31, 32

Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist.,

570 U.S. 595 (2013)................................................................................................................ 32

Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc.,

544 U.S. 528 (2005)................................................................................................................ 32

Los Angeles Cty. Metro. Transp. Auth. v. Cont’l Dev. Corp.,

16 Cal. 4th 694 (1997) .............................................................................................................. 7

Lungren v. Deukmejian,

45 Cal. 3d 727 (1988) ............................................................................................................. 18

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Marin Municipal Water District v. City of Mill Valley,

202 Cal. App. 3d 1161 (1988)........................................................................................... 19, 20

Marshall v. Department of Water & Power

219 Cal. App. 3d 1124 (1990)............................................................................................. 7, 25

Mercury Casualty Co. v. City of Pasadena,

14 Cal. App. 5th 917 (2017).................................................................................................... 22

Moreland Investment Co. v. Superior Court, 

106 Cal. App. 3d 1017 (1980)........................................................................................... 21, 22

Mosk v. Superior Court,

25 Cal. 3d 474 (Cal. 1979)........................................................................................................ 3

Murphy v. Murphy

164 Cal. App. 4th 376 (2008).................................................................................................. 11

Murray v. Alaska Airlines, Inc.,

50 Cal. 4th 860 (2010) ............................................................................................................ 11

Orkin v. Taylor, 

487 F.3d 734 (9th Cir. 2007)................................................................................................... 13

Pac. Bell Tel. Co. v. S. Cal. Edison Co.,

208 Cal. App. 4th 1400 (Cal. Ct. App. 2012) ................................................................ passim

Pac. Gas & Elec. Co. v. Superior Court (Abbott),

No. S251585 (Cal. Nov. 14, 2018)............................................................................................ 9

Pac. Gas & Elec. Co. v. Superior Court (Abu-Shumays),

No. S249429 (Cal. Aug. 8, 2018).............................................................................................. 9

Pacific Bell v. City of San Diego,

81 Cal. App. 4th 596 ........................................................................................................ passim

Pasillas v. Agricultural Labor Relations Board,

156 Cal. App. 3d 312 (1984)................................................................................................... 17

Penn. Cent. Transp. Co. v. City of New York,

438 U.S. 104 (1978).......................................................................................................... 30, 32

Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc.,

481 U.S. 1 (1987).................................................................................................................... 29

Phillips v. Wash. Legal Found.,

524 U.S. 156 (1998)................................................................................................................ 27

Pierce v. Pac. Gas & Elec. Co.,

166 Cal. App. 3d 68 (1985)..................................................................................................... 34

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Ponderosa Tel. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n,

36 Cal. App. 5th 999 (2019).................................................................................................... 26

Producers Dairy Delivery Co. v. Sentry Ins. Co.,

41 Cal. 3d 903 (1986) ............................................................................................................. 11

Prof. Engs. Calif. Gov’t v. Schwarzenegger,

50 Cal.4th 989 (Cal. 2010)........................................................................................................ 3

Reardon v. City & Cty. of San Francisco,

66 Cal. 492 (1885) .................................................................................................................... 7

Redev. Agency v. Gilmore,

38 Cal. 3d 790 (1985) ............................................................................................................. 19

In re Reyes,

BAP No. EC-18-1229, 2019 WL 1759749 (B.A.P. 9th Cir. Apr. 19, 2019) .......................... 10

Roos v. Red,

130 Cal. App. 4th 870 (2005).................................................................................................. 11

Sagaponack Realty, LLC v. Vill. of Sagaponack,

778 F. App’x 63 (2d Cir. 2019)............................................................................................... 29

San Diego Police Officers’ Ass’n v. San Diego City Emps.’ Ret. Sys., 

568 F.3d 725 (9th Cir. 2008)................................................................................................... 11

In re So. Cal. Edison Co.,

No. ER19-1553-000 (FERC May 2, 2019)............................................................................. 26

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell, 

538 U.S. 408 (2003)................................................................................................................ 35

Stoner v. New York Life Ins. Co.,

311 U.S. 464 (1941).................................................................................................... 12, 13, 14

Texas v. United States,

523 U.S. 296 (1998)................................................................................................................ 29

United States v. King Mountain Tobacco Co.,

745 F. App’x 700 (9th Cir. 2018) ........................................................................................... 27

Verizon Commc’n, Inc. v. FCC,

535 U.S. 467 (2002)................................................................................................................ 31

West v. American Tel. & Tel. Co.,

311 U.S. 223 (1940).................................................................................................. 1, 2, 13, 14

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Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson 

City,

473 U.S. 172 (1985)................................................................................................................ 29

Statutes

42 U.S.C. § 1983........................................................................................................................... 31

Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 394............................................................................................................ 21

Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 1036...................................................................................................... 1, 12

Cal. Pub. Util. Code § 451 ............................................................................................................ 29

Cal. Pub. Util. Code §§ 451.1, 3284 ............................................................................................. 27

Cal. Pub. Util. Code § 612 ............................................................................................................ 15

Other Authorities

Cal. Const. art. I, § 19 ..................................................................................................... 4, 6, 18, 23

Cal. Const. art. VI, § 2 ................................................................................................................... 2

Cal. Jury Instr. BAJI 3.45 ............................................................................................................. 25

Cal. Pub. Utilities Comm’n Dec. 17-11-033, at 10 (Nov. 30, 2017) ...................................... 24, 25

Governor Newsom’s Strike Force, Wildfires And Climate Change: California's 

Energy Future (Apr. 12, 2019) ................................................................................................. 5

Inara Scott, Incentive Regulation, New Business Models, and the Transformation 

of the Electric Power Industry, 5 Mich. J. Envtl. & Admin. L. 319 (2016) ........................... 24

J.D. Morris, PG&E to raise average monthly bill nearly $5 next month, San 

Francisco Chronicle, https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/PG-E-toraisse-average-monthly-gas-bill-nearly-2-14450522.php (Sept. 18, 2019) (Last 

Accessed Nov. 13, 2019) ........................................................................................................ 24

Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Application of Pacific Gas and Electric Company for 

Authority to Establish the Wildfire Expense Memorandum Account, at 3 (July 

26, 2017) ................................................................................................................................... 5

Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Comments to Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire 

Cost and Recovery, at 3 (April 22, 2019) ................................................................................. 5

Senate Committee on Appropriations, AB 1054 (Holden), July 8, 2019, at 3 ............................... 5

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Sophia Kunthara, PG&E profit rises to $564 million for quarter, revenue declines, 

SFGate https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/PG-E-profit-rises-to-564-

million-for-quarter-13363879.php (Nov. 9, 2018) (Last Accessed Nov. 13, 

2019) ....................................................................................................................................... 24

U.S. Const., amend. V................................................................................................................... 35

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The Official Committee of Tort Claimants (the “TCC”) in the chapter 11 cases of PG&E 

Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (the “Debtors” or “PG&E”), together with the 

additional signatories to this brief, hereby submits the following response (“Response”) to the joint 

brief on the applicability of inverse condemnation [Dkt. No. 4485]. In support of the Response, 

the TCC submits the declaration of David B. Rivkin (“Rivkin Decl.”), filed contemporaneously 

herewith. The TCC also relies on the previously filed Declaration of Robert A. Julian, dated July 

2, 2019 [Dkt. No. 2844] (“Julian Decl.”). The TCC respectfully states as follows:

I. Preliminary Statement

The Court must adopt the two Court of Appeal decisions that apply California inverse 

condemnation law to utilities. Those Court of Appeal decisions declare that, when private property 

is taken or damaged by a California utility, the State Constitution requires the utility to compensate 

the owner for damages caused by the utility’s improvements, which includes interest and attorneys’ 

fees. Pac. Bell Tel. Co. v. S. Cal. Edison Co., 208 Cal. App. 4th 1400, 1410 (Cal. Ct. App. 2012) 

as modified (Sept. 13, 2012); Barham v. S. Cal. Edison Co., 74 Cal. App. 4th 744, 751-52 (Cal. Ct. 

App. 1999); CCP § 1036. The Debtors dispute their responsibility for inverse condemnation 

damages on a single basis: the Debtors argue a federal court should not apply the Court of Appeal’s 

decisions if there is “persuasive data” the California Supreme Court would overturn the Court of 

Appeal’s decisions, and such persuasive arguments supposedly exist. 

However, in West v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 311 U.S. 223 (1940), the U.S. Supreme 

Court ruled the persuasive data rule does not apply if a state Supreme Court “denied review” of the 

appellate issue, because a state Supreme Court’s denial of review is persuasive evidence the state 

Supreme Court did not see the necessity of reviewing or modifying the existing intermediate 

appellate court decision. “Where an intermediate appellate state court rests its considered judgment 

upon the rule of law which it announces, that is a datum for ascertaining state law which is not to 

be disregarded by a federal court unless it is convinced by other persuasive data that the highest 

court of the state would decide otherwise. [citations omitted] This is the more so where, as in this 

case, the highest court has refused to review the lower court’s decision rendered in one phase of 

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the very litigation which is now prosecuted by the same parties before the federal court.” 311 U.S. 

at 237. 

In West, the Supreme Court held that when the state Supreme Court denies a petition for 

review of the Court of Appeals decision, the “denial of review” is “the State Supreme Court 

decision” that the federal court must follow, as controlling evidence that the Supreme Court will 

not change existing Court of Appeal precedent. Referring to the fact the State Supreme Court 

“refused to review the lower court’s decision,” the Supreme Court held: “Even though it is arguable 

that the Supreme Court of Ohio will, at some later time, modify the rule of the West case, whether 

that will ever happen remains a matter of conjecture. In the meantime, the state law applicable to 

these parties has been authoritatively declared by the highest state court in which a decision could 

be had.” Id. 

That is the case here. As PG&E explained in its March 31, 2019 10-Q, in two separate 

Supreme Court decisions, dated September 6, 2018, and November 14, 2018, the California 

Supreme Court denied PG&E’s petitions for review of the California Court of Appeal’s separate 

decisions refusing to overturn the Sacramento Superior Court’s and the San Francisco Superior 

Court’s JCCP trial court decisions applying the California Court of Appeal’s inverse law to PG&E’s 

liability for the 2015 Butte fire and the 2017 North Bay Fires. We attach PG&E’s 10-Q explanation 

of the Supreme Court’s repeated denials of its petitions for review, to this Response as Appendix 

A, excerpted from the Julian Decl., Ex. C, at 46, 54-55. The Supreme Court also recently denied a 

third petition for review of an inverse condemnation issue based on the 2017 Thomas fire. Edison 

Int’l v. Superior Ct. (Abate), No. B294164 (Cal. Feb. 20, 2019) (denying petition for review based 

on 2017 Thomas Fires), available at https://tinyurl.com/y36725fj, https://appellatecases. 

courtinfo.ca.gov. 

The Court should understand that, if PG&E seriously believed that the California Supreme 

Court would have rejected Barham and Pacific Bell, it could have sought that review in a pending 

appeal. But, instead, having had its arguments rejected at every level of the California courts, it 

chose to forum shop. In particular, under California Constitution Article VI, Section 12, PG&E 

could have requested the California Supreme Court to immediately decide this precise inverse 

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condemnation appellate issue, now pending in the Court of Appeal on PG&E’s third appellate 

review attempt of the California Superior Court’s 2018 inverse rulings. See Appendix A, 10-Q at 

55. An Article VI, Section 12 transfer of an appeal raising constitutional issues to the Supreme 

Court is a fundamental step of appellate practice. See, e.g., Prof. Engs. Calif. Gov’t v. 

Schwarzenegger, 50 Cal.4th 989, 1000 (Cal. 2010) (reviewing a transferred appeal pursuant to 

Article VI Section 12 regarding the Governor’s authority); Mosk v. Superior Court, 25 Cal. 3d 474, 

480 (Cal. 1979) (noting that the court transferred constitutional issues to itself pursuant to Article 

VI Section 12); Bakke v. Regents of Univ. of California, 18 Cal. 3d 34, 39 (Cal. 1976) (“We 

transferred the cause directly here, prior to a decision by the Court of Appeal, because of the 

importance of the issues involved.”), aff’d in part, rev’d in part, 438 U.S. 265 (1978). Cf. Abelleira 

v. District Court of Appeal, 17 Cal.2d 280, 291-92 (1941) (discussing the doctrine of exhaustion of 

administrative remedies).

In other words, rather than ask this Court to “predict” whether the California Supreme Court 

would decide to grant review of the recent 2018 Court of Appeal decisions, PG&E could have 

simply filed a request with the California Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to resolve 

PG&E’s actual pending, third, inverse appeal, and the Supreme Court would respond directly, for 

a fourth time in one year, whether the Supreme Court believes the issue is worthy of deciding and 

reversing the appellate precedent. PG&E’s decision not to take this fundamental step of appellate 

practice demonstrates that even PG&E does not believe its argument that the California Supreme 

Court would decide this issue differently than every single other California court to address it and 

that its attempt to achieve a different result here is improper.

The PG&E shareholders and the Debtors both suggest that the California Supreme Court 

would rule in a way that they have not yet. Any suggestion that this Court certify the appellate 

issue to the State Supreme Court should be denied on procedural, fairness, laches and forum 

shopping grounds. The Debtors decided to forum shop this issue into the Bankruptcy Court by 

asking this court to predict how the State Supreme Court would decide the issue, rather than request 

the State Supreme Court to resolve the issue directly via the State’s well recognized direct 

verification procedure available under the Constitution. In our August 7, 2019 estimation brief (Dkt. 

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No. 3431), we pointed out the Debtors’ decision was forum shopping, justifying denial of the 

motion on this additional ground. Months went by. The estimation hearing is now around the 

corner. Judge Donato requested this Court’s resolution of the inverse motion be moved up, not 

delayed. With that record behind us, PG&E now suggests that the State Supreme Court would rule 

for PG&E, something PG&E could have asked from the Court ten months ago when PG&E filed 

its appeal of the inverse decision to the State Appellate Court, or at least when we flagged their 

forum shopping three months ago. That ship has sailed. It is now too late to avail ourselves of what 

would have been a common sense move ten months ago, as the State Supreme Court could not rule 

in this case in three weeks. PG&E’s suggestions about how PG&E would rule is not responsive to 

Judge Donato’s request, defies common sense, and is a continuation of its forum shopping.

As we explained last summer, we believe the Debtors have lost the opportunity to ask this 

Court to refuse to follow the Court of Appeal decisions. If the Court reaches the inverse 

condemnation issue, we offer the following brief on that subject.

II. Introduction

PG&E has spent the past year complaining about the fact that it is subject to inverse 

condemnation liability under California law and furiously lobbying to change the law. Because its 

lobbying efforts have not met with success, PG&E now asks this Court to do what California’s 

political branches have been understandably unwilling to do: bail out the utility from having to 

fully compensate the victims of fires caused by its equipment. The thin veneer of legal 

argumentation atop its briefing should not disguise that its argument is fundamentally one of policy, 

disputing the wisdom of California’s decision to extend inverse condemnation liability to privately 

owned utilities. 

Yet, as PG&E well knows, the law in California is that privately owned utilities carry out 

a “public use” and so are subject to the California Constitution’s Takings Clause and its mandate 

to compensate property owners whose property is “taken or damaged for a public use.” Cal. Const. 

art. I, § 19. Or, as PG&E put it in a filing with the California Public Utilities Commission 

(“CPUC”), “California’s law of inverse condemnation...allows plaintiffs to sue private utilities 

and recover for property and other damages caused by utility facilities without needing to establish 

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negligence.”1 Or, as PG&E stated in comments to the California government just a few months 

ago, “IOUs [investor-owned utilities] (through their investors) are left to shoulder all costs of 

property damage from catastrophic wildfires, as well as all attorneys’ fees and expert costs from 

litigation, if their facilities were involved in ignition of a fire.”2 That “existing standard,” it stated, 

“essentially makes utilities the insurers of last resort for property damage resulting from wildfires 

caused by utility equipment” and “exposes utilities to massive liabilities.”3

PG&E was correct to acknowledge that the “existing” law subjects it to inverse 

condemnation liability. That is the unanimous view of California courts interpreting and applying 

the California Constitution, including two decisions of the Court of Appeals holding privately 

owned utilities subject to inverse condemnation liability. That consensus also includes a final 

judgment against PG&E for Butte Fire liability involving a claim currently before this Court. 

Inverse condemnation liability has likewise been recognized by the California Legislature; for 

example, the official Senate report on AB 1054 stated, “California’s current legal structure of 

inverse condemnation makes utilities liable for all property damage associated with fires started by 

their equipment.”4 And California’s executive branch, in the “Governor’s Strike Force” report that 

PG&E cites over a dozen times, recognizes that “California’s inverse condemnation law...holds a 

utility strictly liable for wildfire damages if the utility’s equipment ignites a wildfire, even if the 

utility’s design and maintenance of infrastructure were not unreasonable or negligent.”5

Refusing to accept that its arguments have been rejected by every court to consider them—

including the California Supreme Court, on three separate occasions in the past year or so—PG&E 

has decided to try yet again, in the hope that a federal court will overrule California courts’ 

consistent interpretation of California law. Among the many problems with that strategy is that 

PG&E is already subject to a final judgment on inverse condemnation liability that this Court lacks 

 1 Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Application of Pacific Gas and Electric Company for Authority to Establish the Wildfire 

Expense Memorandum Account, at 3 (July 26, 2017). 

2 Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Comments to Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery, at 3 (April 22, 

2019). 

3 Id. at 1. 4 Senate Committee on Appropriations, AB 1054 (Holden), July 8, 2019, at 3. 

5 Declaration of Kevin J. Orsini, dated October 25, 2019 [Dkt. No. 4486], Exhibit A (Governor Newsom’s Strike 

Force Report).

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jurisdiction to reconsider and that provides a sound basis to hold PG&E estopped from attempting 

to relitigate this same issue in case after case, at substantial expense in terms of judicial and party 

economy. Another problem for PG&E is that, as much as it resists the point, the decisions of state 

intermediate appellate courts on matters of state law are binding in federal court, at least according 

to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the California Court of Appeals decisions recognizing inverse 

condemnation liability are therefore dispositive of state law in these proceedings. A third problem, 

and not a small one, is that PG&E’s principal contention is wrong: neither the text of the California 

Constitution, nor any decision interpreting it, recognizes guaranteed cost “socialization” as an 

element of an inverse condemnation claim. 

California law on inverse condemnation being what it is, PG&E is left to argue, with more 

than a whiff of desperation, that the whole thing is unconstitutional. About its substantive due 

process argument, it is enough to observe that requiring utilities to compensate damages caused by 

their own equipment bears a rational relationship to legitimate state interests in safety and public 

welfare, which is all due process demands. And PG&E’s takings argument is both premature and 

misplaced. Premature, because the utility is not yet subject to any liability and has not been denied 

cost-recovery for what is, at this time, still a speculative cost. Misplaced, because PG&E’s real 

complaint (legally, at least) is with the CPUC and perhaps the state itself, both of which may have 

obligations under the federal Takings Clause that PG&E’s victims obviously do not.

In sum, PG&E would be better served by directing its lobbying at the Legislature, which at 

least has authority to change California law, rather than this Court, which does not.

III. Background

A. Inverse Condemnation Liability Under California Law

Article I, Section 19 of the California Constitution provides, in relevant part, “Private 

property may be taken or damaged for a public use and only when just compensation, ascertained 

by a jury unless waived, has first been paid to, or into court for, the owner.” The predecessor of that 

language dates back to California’s first state constitution, adopted in 1849, and the current text has 

been unchanged since 1879, when the words “or damaged” were added. That change was quickly 

interpreted by the California Supreme Court “as imposing liability for compensation absent fault.” 

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Holtz v. Superior Court, 3 Cal. 3d 296, 310 (1970) (discussing Reardon v. City & Cty. of San 

Francisco, 66 Cal. 492, 499 (1885)). 

The California Constitution’s Takings Clause has, since the very beginning, been applied 

to private parties charged by the state to carry out public uses. That makes sense, because the 

immediate aim that motivated the Clause’s framers was “to preclude private railroad 

companies...from taking land without first compensating the owner[.]” Los Angeles Cty. Metro. 

Transp. Auth. v. Cont’l Dev. Corp., 16 Cal. 4th 694, 706 (1997) (emphasis added) (discussing and 

citing framing history). Thus, it was to be expected that the California Supreme Court, in Contra 

Coal Mines Railroad Co. v. Moss, upheld delegation of the state’s eminent domain power to a 

private railroad company. 23 Cal. 323, 327 (1863). Subsequently, Eachus v. Los Angeles 

Consolidated Electric Railway Co. affirmed an award of inverse condemnation damages against a 

privately owned railroad that enjoyed a government franchise. 103 Cal. 614 (1894). It did not take 

long for the Clause to be applied to privately owned electric utilities. In Gurnsey v. Northern 

California Power Co., the California Supreme Court recognized that a property owner was entitled 

to compensation (rather than ejectment) from the local power company operating under a franchise 

for its overburdening of an easement over his land. 160 Cal. 699 (1911). 

Beginning in the 1980s, California courts recognized that ordinary takings principles were 

applicable to fire damage caused by electric utilities. The first two appellate decisions to recognize 

such liability involved publicly owned utilities. See Aetna Life & Cas. Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 

170 Cal. App. 3d 865 (1985); Marshall v. Department of Water & Power 219 Cal. App. 3d 1124 

(1990). Twenty years ago, a California appeals court was asked to join the two lines of precedent—

one imposing inverse condemnation liability on privately owned entities like utilities carrying out 

public uses, the other recognizing inverse condemnation liability for utility-caused fires. It did so, 

in Barham v. Southern California Edison Co., finding no basis to distinguish between publicly 

owned and privately owned utilities carrying out the same public use, the transmission of electricity 

to the public. 74 Cal. App. 4th 744 (1999). A little more than a decade later, a second appeals court 

decision reached the same conclusion on the same reasoning. Pac. Bell Tel. Co. v. S. Cal. Edison 

Co., 208 Cal. App. 4th 1400 (2012) as modified.

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B. Procedural History

These proceedings involve PG&E’s liability for a series of fires allegedly caused by its 

equipment and, among the claims asserted against PG&E, are ones for inverse condemnation 

liability under the California Constitution for damage to property. Prior to the commencement of 

these proceedings, PG&E faced and litigated inverse condemnation claims brought by victims of 

the 2015 Butte Fire, which PG&E was determined to have caused, in the Sacramento County 

Superior Court. PG&E moved that court for a determination that, as a privately owned utility, it 

was not subject to inverse condemnation liability, arguing (among other things) that it “does not 

have the authority to spread the costs of any award to all its customers.” Rivkin Decl. Ex. A Butte 

Fire Cases, No. JCCP 4853 at 15 (Cal. Super. Ct. Sacramento County June 22, 2017). Viewing the 

argument as one of “public policy” more than law, the court declared itself “not persuaded” and 

denied PG&E’s motion in a June 2017 decision applying the rule of Barham and Pacific Bell. Id. 

Subsequently, the CPUC denied an application by another privately owned utility, San 

Diego Gas & Electric Company, for recovery of certain costs it incurred in settling fire-related 

inverse condemnation claims, reasoning that the utility’s failure to “reasonably manage and operate 

its facilities” prior to the fires meant that the costs were not recoverable under the “prudent manager 

standard.” Decision Denying Application of San Diego Gas & Electric Company, Public Utilities 

Commission of the State of California at 2, 11 (December 6, 2017). 6

Based on that decision, PG&E renewed its request for relief, arguing that the CPUC decision 

undermined the legal basis for inverse condemnation liability because it determined that such 

liability is not automatically recoverable and so does not satisfy the “cost spreading” rationale for 

inverse condemnation. Rivkin Decl. Ex. B, Butte Fire Cases, No. JCCP 4853 at 6 (Cal. Super. Ct. 

Sacramento County May 1, 2018) (order on inverse condemnation). In a May 2018 decision, the 

court again disagreed, reasoning that “[w]hether PG&E, a privately owned public utility, should be 

liable under the doctrine of inverse condemnation for damages caused by the Butte Fire is a question 

of public policy to be addressed to the Legislature.” Id. at 2. None of the precedents in this area, it 

concluded, rested on the assumption of automatic cost-spreading. Id. at 16. It also rejected PG&E’s 

 6 Available at http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M200/K045/200045020.PDF.

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arguments that imposing inverse condemnation liability on it would constitute an uncompensated 

taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment and would violate its substantive due process rights. Id. 

at 17. After that decision, the court entered a stipulated final judgment against PG&E in favor of 

two plaintiffs who had asserted inverse condemnation claims. 

In separate litigation before the San Francisco Superior Court concerning 2017 fires alleged 

to have been caused by PG&E, it moved for dismissal of inverse condemnation claims based on 

the 2017 CPUC decision and the lack of automatic cost-spreading. The court, in a May 2018 

decision, rejected PG&E’s argument, on the same basis as the Butte Fire court, and also rejected 

PG&E’s takings and substantive due process arguments. Harrison v. PG&E Corp., No. 

CGC17563108, 2018 WL 2447104 (May 21, 2018). 

PG&E sought and was denied relief by California’s Courts of Appeals and Supreme Court. 

It filed petitions for a writ of mandate or prohibition (essentially mandamus) in the Third and First 

Appellate Districts challenging the Superior Court decisions permitting the inverse condemnation 

claims against it to proceed. Both were denied. In each case, it petitioned the California Supreme 

Court for review, and in each case, its petitions were denied. Order, Pac. Gas & Elec. Co. v. 

Superior Court (Abu-Shumays), No. S249429 (Cal. Aug. 8, 2018); Order, Pac. Gas & Elec. Co. v. 

Superior Court (Abbott), No. S251585 (Cal. Nov. 14, 2018). Consistent with those denials, the 

California Supreme Court earlier this year denied a petition for review by another privately owned 

utility, Edison International, presenting the same issue. Order, Edison Int’l v. Superior Court 

(Abate), No. S253094 (Cal. Feb. 20, 2019).

IV. Argument

A. The Inverse Condemnation Issue Has Already Been Decided

The Court need not reach the merits of PG&E’s arguments against inverse condemnation 

because PG&E is subject to a final judgment that is binding and provides a basis to hold precluded 

PG&E’s arguments against inverse condemnation. Preclusion is particularly warranted in this 

instance, both to avoid inconsistent treatment of claims and claimants and to carry out the policy 

underlying preclusion that parties are not entitled to keep reasserting the same arguments in case 

after case after they have already had a full and fair opportunity to be heard and lost. 

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The final judgment entered against PG&E resolved an inverse condemnation claim asserted 

by Barbara Jean and Robert Thomas Zelmer against PG&E for damages they suffered from the 

2015 Butte Fire. Rivkin Decl., Ex. C, Stipulated Judgment at 2. PG&E twice moved the court to 

hold that, as a privately owned utility, it was not subject to inverse condemnation liability, raising 

the same “socialization” and constitutional arguments that it does here. See Rivkin Decl. Ex. B, 

Ruling on Submitted Matter: PG&E’s Renewed Motion for a Legal Determination of Inverse 

Condemnation Liability, at 2, 7, 17, Butte Fire Cases, No. JCCP 4853 (Sacramento Sup. Ct. May 

1, 2018). The court denied its motions. It held: (1) that the California Constitution subjects privately 

owned utilities to inverse condemnation liability; (2) that the November 2017 CPUC decision 

denying recovery for such liability was irrelevant; (3) that Barham and Pacific Bell were 

indistinguishable because neither rested on the assumption of automatic cost-spreading; and (4) that 

PG&E’s constitutional arguments could not alter the result. See generally id. There being no dispute 

over the Zelmers’ damages, the parties entered into a stipulated judgment, which the court entered 

as a final judgment. See Rivkin Decl. Ex. D Order Granting Motion for Entry of Stipulated 

Judgment, Butte Fire Cases, No. JCCP 4853 (Sacramento Sup. Ct. Nov. 29, 2018). Subsequently, 

the Zelmers filed a claim in this bankruptcy proceeding for the $850,000 to which they were entitled 

under the final judgment. Claim 125-1 (filed Apr. 19, 2019). 

To the extent that PG&E disputes its inverse condemnation liability to the Zelmers, it is 

seeking review of issues that were litigated and decided against it in the final state-court judgment 

against it, and that is barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. That doctrine “provides that federal 

district [and bankruptcy] courts lack jurisdiction to exercise appellate review over final state court 

judgments. Essentially, the doctrine bars state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by statecourt judgments rendered before the district [or bankruptcy] court proceedings commenced from 

asking district [or bankruptcy] courts to review and reject those judgments.” Henrichs v. Valley 

View Dev., 474 F.3d 609, 613 (9th Cir. 2007) (quotation marks and citations omitted); see also In 

re Reyes, BAP No. EC-18-1229, 2019 WL 1759749, at *6–7 (B.A.P. 9th Cir. Apr. 19, 2019) 

(holding that doctrine deprived bankruptcy court of jurisdiction to consider debtors’ arguments 

disputing the merits of claims arising from state-court judgment). Here, it bars reconsideration of 

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PG&E’s liability to the Zelmers.7

That final judgment also provides a basis to reject, as to all claimants, PG&E’s arguments 

against inverse condemnation liability under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, also known as 

“issue preclusion.” Under California law, collateral estoppel may bar relitigation of an issue if 

“(1) the issue necessarily decided in the previous suit is identical to the issue sought to be 

relitigated; (2) there was a final judgment on the merits of the previous suit; and (3) the party against 

whom the plea is asserted was a party...to the previous suit.” Producers Dairy Delivery Co. v. 

Sentry Ins. Co., 41 Cal. 3d 903, 910 (1986). All three elements are satisfied here: (1) the Butte Fire

court considered and rejected the same arguments on the same issue (the application of inverse 

condemnation liability to privately owned utilities) as here; (2) its decision resulted in a final 

judgment against PG&E; and (3) PG&E was, of course, a party to that suit. 

Application of collateral estoppel is warranted, for three reasons. First, holding PG&E 

estopped is necessary to avoid the possibility of “inconsistent judgments which undermine the 

integrity of the judicial system,” Murray v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., 50 Cal. 4th 860, 879 (2010), given 

that there is no basis to distinguish, with respect to the legal issue here, between the Zelmers and 

other fire victims asserting inverse condemnation claims. Second, estoppel would “promote the 

sound public policy of limiting litigation by preventing a party who has had one fair trial on an 

issue from again drawing that issue into controversy and by avoiding inconsistent judgments.” Imen 

v. Glassford, 201 Cal. App. 3d 898, 905–06 (1988) (citations omitted); see also Murphy v. Murphy

164 Cal. App. 4th 376, 404 (2008) (explaining that estoppel is warranted to “promote judicial 

economy by minimizing repetitive litigation”). And, third, PG&E had a “full and fair” opportunity 

to litigate the inverse condemnation issue in the Butte Fire proceedings—in fact, two 

opportunities—such that holding PG&E to the resulting judgment would not work any injustice. 

See Roos v. Red, 130 Cal. App. 4th 870, 880 (2005). 

 7 In addition, the judgment is binding under ordinary principles of claim preclusion because (1) the same claim of 

liability is at issue, (2) the first suit resulted in a final judgment on the merits, and (3) PG&E was a party to that suit. 

See San Diego Police Officers’ Ass’n v. San Diego City Emps.’ Ret. Sys., 568 F.3d 725, 734 (9th Cir. 2008)

(identifying elements for preclusion).

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At this point, it is beyond dispute that California law subjects privately owned utilities like 

PG&E to inverse condemnation liability, and no legitimate purpose is served by permitting PG&E 

to raise yet again the same arguments that California courts have repeatedly rejected.

B. PG&E Is Subject to Inverse Condemnation Under Binding California Law

California courts have already determined that privately owned utilities like PG&E are 

subject to inverse condemnation liability, and the Debtors’ argument that those decisions are not 

binding on this case is simply wrong. Pacific Bell Telephone Co. v. Southern California. Edison 

Co., 208 Cal. App. 4th 1400 (2012), and Barham v. Southern California Edison Co., 74 Cal. App. 

4th 744 (1999), both hold that, when private property is taken or damaged by a privately owned 

utility, the California Constitution requires the utility to compensate the owner, including interest 

and attorneys’ fees. See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 1036. Those directly on-point decisions are 

consistent with the precedent of the California Supreme Court, which has repeatedly declined 

requests by utilities to reject inverse condemnation liability in these circumstances. There is no 

basis for this Court to depart from the unanimous rulings of California courts on this point. 

“[F]ederal courts, under the doctrine of Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, must follow the 

decisions of intermediate state courts in the absence of convincing evidence that the highest court 

of the state would decide differently” when deciding a question of state law. Stoner v. New York 

Life Ins. Co., 311 U.S. 464, 467 (1941) (citations omitted). In other words, the decisions of 

intermediate state courts on matters of state law are, by default, binding in federal court.

The Ninth Circuit applied that rule to a bankruptcy case in In re Kirkland, 915 F.2d 1236 

(9th Cir. 1990). At issue was the interpretation of several provisions of the California Commercial 

Code. Id. at 1241. Although the California Supreme Court had not spoken on the issue, several 

California Courts of Appeal had, with the recent decisions supporting the debtor’s position. Id. at 

1239. The Ninth Circuit held that the Stoner rule governed: “When interpreting state law, a federal 

court is bound by the decision of the highest state court....However, ‘in the absence of convincing 

evidence that the highest court of the state would decide differently, a federal court is obligated to 

follow the state’s intermediate courts.’” Id. at 1238–39 (citations omitted) (quoting Am. Triticale, 

Inc. v. Nytco Servs., Inc., 664 F.2d 1136, 1143 (9th Cir. 1981), which in turn quoted Stoner, supra). 

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Accordingly, the court declared itself “bound by the interpretation adopted by the majority of 

California appeals courts.” Id. at 1239. It recognized, correctly, that it did “not write on a blank 

slate and” so was “compelled to apply the law as we find it interpreted by California courts.” Id. at 

1241. Likewise, under Stoner and Kirkland, the interpretation of California law adopted by Pacific 

Bell and Barham is binding in these federal proceedings.

Also relevant is that the California Supreme Court has declined challenges by utilities to 

PG&E’s interpretation three times over just the past two years. West v. American Telephone & 

Telegraph Co. holds that such denials demonstrate that lower decisions correctly interpret and apply 

state law. 311 U.S. 223, 237 (1940). A federal court, it explained, is generally bound where “an 

intermediate appellate state court rests its considered judgment upon the rule of law which it 

announces,” and such a decision may not “be disregarded by a federal court unless it is convinced 

by other persuasive data that the highest court of the state would decide otherwise.” Id. Where “the 

highest court has refused to review the lower court’s decision,” that weighs heavily against any 

claim that the lower court erred. Id. Three such refusals, in the space of about a year, is all but 

conclusive of the California Supreme Court’s view of the law in this area.

The authorities cited by PG&E as grounds to disregard Pacific Bell and Barham do not 

support that result. In Orkin v. Taylor, unlike here, on-point California Supreme Court precedent 

contradicted the reasoning of an aberrant Court of Appeals decision on the relevant issue: whether 

a “discovery” rule applied to accrual of the statute of limitations. 487 F.3d 734 (9th Cir. 2007). That 

decision conflicted with the California Supreme Court’s holding that any discovery rule included a 

“constructive notice” requirement. Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit “conclude[d] that it is highly 

unlikely that the California Supreme Court would abandon [its previous] rule, much less adopt a 

new rule....” Id. at 741. Here, by contrast, there is no conflict in authority, clear or otherwise.

Similarly inapposite is American Tower Corp. v. City of San Diego, 763 F.3d 1035 (9th Cir. 

2014). The case involved claims that a permit denial by the City of San Diego violated, among 

other things, California law. Despite a California Court of Appeals decision to the contrary, the 

Ninth Circuit held there to be no violation because the plain text of the California statute was 

“persuasive data that the California Court of Appeal misinterpreted” the relevant provisions. Id. at 

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1047 (quotation marks omitted). The previous decision, it explained, “violated the fundamental 

canon of construction that a statute should not be construed so as to render any of its provisions 

mere surplusage.” Id. at 1047–48. Thus, the Ninth Circuit had a firm basis for its conclusion that 

“[w]e do not believe that the California Supreme Court would do the same.” Id. at 1048.8 Here, by 

contrast, the plain text of the California Constitution provides no basis to depart from Pacific Bell

and Barham.

In the absence of any basis, much less a firm one, to conclude that Pacific Bell and Barham

conflict with the law of the California Supreme Court, those decisions are binding here.

C. Pacific Bell and Barham are Indistinguishable from This Case

PG&E cannot distinguish Pacific Bell and Barham from this case. Its claim, that those 

decisions were premised on the assumption, since (it contends) rebutted, that utilities could 

automatically “socialize” the cost of inverse condemnation liability is wrong. To the contrary, 

California law has long recognized that the state may not evade its constitutional obligations by 

enlisting private entities like utilities to carry out public purposes and that, accordingly, such entities 

are subject to obligations under the California Constitution including its Takings Clause’s just 

compensation requirement.

Barham involved basically the same circumstances as here. The plaintiffs sought 

compensation from a privately owned utility, Southern California Edison (“SCE”), for damage to 

their property caused by a 1993 wildfire allegedly sparked by SCE’s overhead power lines. 74 Cal. 

App. 4th at 748–49. The court held that the utility, although privately owned, could be treated as a 

public entity subject to inverse condemnation liability, based on five considerations, all applicable 

here. First, it is well established under California law that “condemning private property for the 

 8 Debtors also misconstrue the holdings of In re Basave de Guillen, 604 B.R. 826 (BAP 9th Cir. 2019), and In re 

Foamex International Inc., 491 B.R. 100 (Bankr. D. Del. 2013), in asserting that “[t]his Court is not bound by the 

decisions of lower California courts.” Br. at 13 n.7. Neither court rejected or side-stepped Stoner, West, and In re

Kirkland. The In re Basave De Guillen court applied those precedents, and concluded that the single, relevant 

California Court of Appeals case was factually distinguishable and had failed to take into account important sections 

and purposes of the statute at issue. 604 B.R. at 836–37. There were, in other words, “persuasive data” that the 

California Supreme Court would not follow the intermediate court’s lead in that case. The court in In re Foamex 

International, Inc., reached a similar conclusion. There, the court was called upon to determine whether 

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court would recognize a tortious interference claim in the context of an at-will employment 

agreement. It was not faced with two clear, definitive and indistinguishable intermediate decisions, as here, but with 

“a morass of inconsistent rulings” by the state’s lower courts. 491 B.R. at 106.

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transmission of electrical power is a public use and inverse condemnation applies.” Id. at 745. 

Second, utilities enjoy eminent domain power under California law. Id. at 752–54. (citing Cal. Pub. 

Util. Code § 612). Third, the California Supreme Court held, in Gay Law Students Ass’n. v. Pacific 

Telephone & Telegraph Co., 24 Cal. 3d 458 (1979), that privately owned utilities may be “state 

actor[s],” particularly in areas where state regulation leads a “utility to conduct its affairs more like 

a governmental entity than like a private corporation.” Barham, 74 Cal. App. 4th at 753 (quotation 

marks omitted). Fourth, there was no basis to distinguish privately owned utilities from publicly 

owned utilities, which had “been held liable in inverse condemnation in situations virtually identical 

to this case.” Id. (citing authorities). Finally, and above all else, the “principal focus” of the 

California Constitution’s Takings Clause is “the concept of public use, as opposed to the nature of 

the entity appropriating the property,” and (as noted above) California law expressly recognizes 

that transmitting electricity to the public is a public use. Id.

Each of those five considerations applies equally to PG&E. Moreover, the Barham court 

did not regard whether a utility could automatically recover the cost of inverse condemnation 

liability to be a relevant consideration. 

Pacific Bell, which carefully scrutinized and ultimately agreed with Barham’s reasoning, is 

also indistinguishable. It involved a successful inverse condemnation claim against SCE based on 

damage to property caused by a ground fault. 208 Cal. App. 4th at 1403. The court rejected SCE’s 

argument that it was immune from inverse condemnation liability because it was privately owned, 

relying (like Barham) on the company’s status as a utility carrying out a public use and its franchise 

status: “[SCE’s] monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic authority, deriving directly from its exclusive 

franchise provided by the state, distinguishes [SCE’s] action from the cases it cites rejecting inverse 

condemnation cases against private parties who do not have such monopolistic authority from the 

state.” Id. at 1406 (citations omitted). And (similar to Barham) Pacific Bell recognized that 

immunizing privately owned utilities, but not publicly owned ones, from inverse condemnation 

liability would yield absurd policy outcomes: “We do not believe the happenstance of which type 

of utility operates in an area should foreclose a property owner’s right to just compensation under 

inverse condemnation for the damage, interest and attorney fees.” Id. at 1408.

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Pacific Bell was not, as PG&E claims (at 14), premised on the assumption that SCE could 

automatically pass its costs along to customers. In fact, it expressly rejected reliance on that 

assumption. In response to the company’s claim that, lacking the power to tax, it was unable to 

socialize costs like a government actor, the court stated that “[SCE] has not pointed to any evidence 

to support its implication that the [public utility] commission would not allow [SCE] adjustments 

to pass on damages liability during its periodic reviews.” Id. at 1407. It also rejected the legal 

premise underlying SCE’s argument, stating that the fact that utilities may be subject to limiting 

rate regulation by the CPUC does not “immunize” them “from inverse condemnation liability under 

the theory that they were no longer able to spread the cost of public improvements.” Id. n.6.9 Thus, 

for the Pacific Bell court, cost recovery was irrelevant.

On that point, Pacific Bell was entirely correct. Contrary to PG&E’s claim (at 13), the 

California Court has extended inverse condemnation liability to privately owned entities, without 

any mention of cost recovery. Eachus v. Los Angeles Consolidated Electric Railway Co., 103 Cal. 

614 (1894), which PG&E neither cites nor discusses, affirmed an award of inverse condemnation 

damages to a landowner whose property was cut off from the public road by a “grade” (in this case, 

a 28-foot-deep trench) for a private rail-line constructed pursuant to a franchise from the city of 

Los Angeles. Id. at 615. What mattered, the court explained, was that the construction was “for the 

benefit of the public..., and if, in establishing such grade, the owner suffers damage, his property 

has been damaged for public use.” Id. at 621 (quotation marks omitted). PG&E’s failure to confront 

Eachus is telling, given that the decision is among those underpinning Pacific Bell’s holding that 

privately owned utilities are subject to inverse condemnation liability.10

 9 PG&E claims (at 14 n.8) that this language has no bearing here, but the same argument was rejected by the Butte 

Fire court. It stated: “Even if considered dicta, this statement suggests that whether [the utility] could pass on its 

losses as rate increases was not essential to the Pac Bell Court’s decision. Merely characterizing the Court of Appeals 

observation as dicta does not mean its reasoning is wrong, unreasonable, or should not be considered.” Butte Fire 

Cases, No. JCCP4853, 2018 WL 3371780, at *10 (Cal. Super. Ct. Apr. 26, 2018). In any instance, that portion of 

Pacific Bell is not dicta; SCE, like PG&E here, argued that it was not subject to inverse condemnation liability 

because it could not socialize costs, and the court rejected that argument on both factual and legal grounds. 

10 PG&E’s reliance (at 10, 12) on Baker v. Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Auth., 39 Cal. 3d 862 (1985), on this 

point is misplaced. Baker did not hold, as PG&E states (at 10), that “only a public entity is subject to inverse 

condemnation,” but that inverse condemnation liability does not depend on whether an entity possesses eminent 

domain power. Id. at 867. Moreover, the court’s reference to the defendant airport becoming a “public entity” was 

part of the court’s recitation of the facts, and not a word of the decision suggests that fact was material to the holding.

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Although PG&E studiously ignores Eachus, it strives mightily—if unsuccessfully—to 

distinguish Gay Law Students Ass’n (hereinafter “GLSA”), on which Pacific Bell also relied. GLSA

held that privately owned utilities may be regarded as state actors in areas where they are closely 

regulated by the state and are therefore subject to the California Constitution’s equal protection 

guarantee. 24 Cal. 3d at 469–75. It also held that sexual-orientation discrimination by private 

utilities violated a statutory provision that it read to incorporate common-law prohibitions on 

discriminatory practices by monopolies like labor unions. Id. at 480–85. PG&E contends (at 16) 

that Pasillas v. Agricultural Labor Relations Board undercuts the application of GLSA here, 

quoting Pasillas’s statement that GLSA “must be read in context, as addressing only the problem 

of arbitrary discrimination in employment.” 156 Cal. App. 3d 312, 348 (1984). The Pasillas court 

made clear, however, that it was referring specifically to GLSA’s second holding, addressing 

common-law duties arising from an entity’s monopoly status, which it called the “[t]he Marinship

strand of the Gay Law Students decision.” Id. at 349; see also id. (“That common law duty arising 

out of ‘monopoly’ concepts, moreover, cannot aid [plaintiffs]....”). By contrast, it recognized that 

GLSA’s other holding subjecting utilities to the California Constitution’s equal protection guarantee 

was premised on the utility’s “state-protected monopoly status and quasi-government entity 

character.” Id. at 348 (citing GLSA, 24 Cal. 3d at 469–75). Accordingly, Pasillas cannot be 

understood to undercut the application of GLSA here or in Pacific Bell and Barham.

In any instance, GLSA speaks for itself, and what it says both follows Eachus and dictates 

the holdings of Pacific Bell and Barham. A utility, GLSA reasoned, is “more akin to a governmental 

entity than to a purely private employer” for purposes of the California Constitution, based on: 

(1) “the breadth and depth of governmental regulation of a public utility's business practices”; 

(2) “the nature of the California regulatory scheme,” which “demonstrates that the state generally 

expects a public utility to conduct its affairs more like a governmental entity than like a private 

corporation”; (3) the fact that its prices and “the standards which govern its facilities and services 

are established by the state”; and (4) the fact that the state has “endowed many public utilities...with 

considerable powers generally enjoyed only by governmental entities, most notably the power of 

eminent domain.” 24 Cal. 3d at 469–70. Above all else, it concluded, a public utility must be 

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regarded as a state actor in areas where its “monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic authority...derives 

directly from its exclusive franchise provided by the state.” Id. at 470. That rule, without a doubt, 

encompasses PG&E in these circumstances. 

D. Inverse Condemnation Liability Does Not Depend on Entitlement to Automatic 

Cost-Recovery

PG&E’s entire argument is grounded on the false assumption that the “sine qua non” of 

inverse condemnation liability is the guaranteed right to spread or socialize costs to the public 

generally through taxation or rates. See Br. at 15. The California Constitution provides, 

unequivocally, that “[p]rivate property may be taken or damaged for a public use and only when 

just compensation, ascertained by a jury unless waived, has first been paid to, or into court for, the 

owner.” Cal. Const. art. 1, § 19. Nothing in the text of the California Constitution limits that right 

to situations in which the condemnor has a “guaranteed” right to socialize its liability. 

Takings liability exists to protect individual property owners against usurpation of their 

property rights by government or those it charges to carry out public uses. See, e.g., City of Carlsbad 

v. Rudvalis, 109 Cal. App. 4th 667, 678 (2003) (“The principle behind the concept of just 

compensation is to put the owner in as good a position pecuniarily as he would have occupied if 

his property had not been taken.”). Although California courts have cited loss-spreading as one of 

the policies underlying the compensation requirement, it does not follow that a defendant’s inability 

to automatically and completely socialize the cost of compensation divests injured property owners 

of their constitutional right to compensation. Indeed, no California court has ever held that 

automatic cost-spreading is an element of an inverse condemnation claim. PG&E’s argument 

purports to convert cost-spreading from one of several judicial rationales for takings liability into 

an element of a constitutional cause of action, contravening the California Supreme Court’s 

admonition that “[w]ords used in a...constitutional provision should be given the meaning they 

bear in ordinary use. If the language is clear and unambiguous there is no need for construction, 

nor is it necessary to resort to indicia of [] intent[.]” Lungren v. Deukmejian, 45 Cal. 3d 727, 735 

(1988).

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Instead, the critical question—consistent with the text of the California Constitution—is 

whether private property has been taken or damaged for a public use. See Holtz, 3 Cal. 3d 296, 303 

(1970) (“‘The decisive consideration is whether the owner of the damaged property if 

uncompensated would contribute more than his proper share to the public undertaking.’”) (quoting 

Clement v. State Reclamation Bd., 35 Cal. 2d 628, 642 (1950); see also Barham, 74 Cal. App. 4th 

at 753 (“[A]rticle I, section 19 of the California Constitution and the cases which interpret and 

apply it have as their principal focus the concept of public use, as opposed to the nature of the entity 

appropriating the property.”). That is true whether the property was taken or damaged by a 

government or private entity, and whether or not that entity can automatically and completely 

spread the resulting costs across society.11

Were the law otherwise, the Takings Clause’s right to compensation for damage to property 

would be a dead letter. Under that mistaken view, the state and its subdivisions could override the 

compensation requirement of the California Constitution in practically every instance by 

outsourcing public uses to private parties and denying them cost recovery. What prevents the state 

and its subdivisions from evading their obligations under the California Constitution’s Takings 

Clause is that it brooks no such exception. Indeed, California courts have consistently held that, 

where a public use causes a taking of or damage to property, a mere “statute cannot defeat a 

condemnee’s constitutional right to just compensation.” Escondido Union Sch. Dist. v. Casa Suenos 

De Oro, Inc., 129 Cal. App. 4th 944, 973 (2005) (citing Redev. Agency v. Gilmore, 38 Cal. 3d 790, 

797 (1985)). And if a statute cannot override the constitutional compensation requirement, neither 

can an administrative action (like a CPUC determination) authorized by statute. 

There is not a single case—and PG&E has cited none—where a California court has agreed 

with its assertion that inverse condemnation claims are prohibited where “socialization” of costs is 

not guaranteed and automatic. To the contrary, Marin Municipal Water District v. City of Mill 

Valley, 202 Cal. App. 3d 1161 (1988), specifically rejected that contention. There, a county water 

 11 This owner-centric approach is also found in the determination of what compensation is due. As Justice Traynor 

explained: “It is irrelevant whether or not the injury to the property is accompanied by a corresponding benefit to the 

public purpose to which the improvement is dedicated, since the measure of liability is not the benefit derived from 

the property, but the loss to the owner.” House v. Los Angeles Flood Control Dist., 25 Cal. 2d 384, 397 (1944) 

(Traynor, J. concurring).

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district sought recovery under inverse condemnation against a city, and the city argued that this 

claim “[ran] counter to the purpose of inverse condemnation” of “socializ[ing] the burden of loss” 

because it would cause “the loss distribution [to] decrease—from countywide to citywide—rather 

than increase.” Id. at 1165. The Court of Appeals disagreed, explaining that inverse condemnation 

cases concerning “unintentional damage...are based primarily on principles of tort and property 

law.” Id. (emphasis added). Thus, it continued: “When the public entity fails to construct or 

maintain its improvement properly, it takes a calculated risk that damage to private property may 

occur. If damage to private property results, it is proper to require the entity that took this risk to 

bear the loss when damage occurs.” Id. (citations omitted); see also Holtz, 3 Cal. 3d at 310–11 

(imposing inverse condemnation liability on public entity that damaged plaintiff’s property through 

an excavation because it undertook actions that “created some risk...of damage to plaintiffs’ 

property” and should therefore “bear the loss when damage does occur”).

The California Supreme Court recently reiterated, and expanded on, this point in City of 

Oroville v. Superior Court, 7 Cal. 5th 1091 (2019). It noted that “useful public improvements must 

eventually be maintained and not merely designed and built. So the ‘inherent risk’ aspect of the 

inverse condemnation inquiry...also encompasses risks from the maintenance or continued upkeep 

up of the public work.” Id. at 1107. If the owner of a public improvement “makes a policy choice 

to benefit from the cost savings from declining to pursue a reasonable maintenance 

program...inverse condemnation principles command ‘the corollary obligation to pay for the 

damages caused when the risks attending these cost-saving measures materialize.’” Id. (quoting 

Pacific Bell v. City of San Diego, 81 Cal. App. 4th 596, 608).12

Here, PG&E took (and profited from) a series of calculated risks in constructing and 

maintaining its electrical distribution system—e.g., using uninsulated wires, failing to remediate 

hazardous vegetation in furtherance of cost-cutting initiatives, and failing to de-energize its lines 

 12 City of Oroville also observed that inverse condemnation is based on a presumption that “where damages are the 

direct consequence of the inherent risks posed by the public improvement, responsibility for the individual property 

owner’s loss is spread across the community benefitting from the public work.” 7 Cal. 5th at 1107. This observation 

was not substantively related to the issue before the court, which was a question of causation. In passing, Oroville

recognized risk-spreading as one rationale of inverse condemnation but did not (as no court has) identify it as an 

element of an inverse condemnation claim.

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during high wind events—for its own benefit and the benefit of its investors, and as a result, 

inflicted catastrophic losses on thousands of Northern California residents. PG&E—and PG&E 

alone—had the skill, know-how, and capacity to minimize such risks, making it, in economic terms, 

the cheapest (and only) cost avoider. Individual fire victims have no legal right or practical ability 

to trim vegetation around PG&E’s lines or “harden” PG&E’s infrastructure by installing insulated 

lines, much less the experience to do so safely. Imposing inverse liability on PG&E will 

appropriately allocate and spread the burden of PG&E’s calculated risks to the multi-billion dollar 

company (and its investors) that most directly benefitted from taking them—and the only one in a 

position to have mitigated them—instead of concentrating that burden on individual fire victims 

(which would be the opposite of cost-spreading). Enjoying billions in revenue, substantial liability 

insurance coverage, and the purported ability to issue billions in debt financing, PG&E is far better 

positioned to absorb the losses caused by its equipment than are hapless individual property owners.

PG&E’s cases are not to the contrary. Moreland Investment Co. v. Superior Court expressly 

recognized that a privately owned utility is not guaranteed the right to pass on to ratepayers the cost 

of eminent domain. 106 Cal. App. 3d 1017 (1980).

13 There, San Diego Gas & Electric (“SDG&E”) 

brought an eminent domain action to condemn property owned by Moreland Investment Co. in San 

Diego County. Moreland argued that SDG&E was a “local agency” under California Civil 

Procedure Code § 394, requiring removal of the trial on compensation to a neutral county. Id. at 

1019. The court disagreed, noting that SDG&E was not a “local agency” because of its public utility 

status within that statute’s meaning. It neither considered, nor addressed, the question whether 

SDG&E was engaged in a “public use” for inverse condemnation purposes. Id. at 1022. 

But Moreland did have something to say on that subject. It noted that the type of public 

pressure addressed by Section 394—from taxpayers who would be required to foot the eminent 

domain bill, and the potential bias their presence on a jury might occasion—was not present in 

SDG&E’s case. As a privately owned utility, the court reasoned, SDG&E could only partially pass 

on its eminent domain costs to utility ratepayers based on the reasonability determinations required 

 13 “An inverse condemnation action is an eminent domain proceeding initiated by the property owner rather than the 

condemner. The principles which affect the parties’ rights in an inverse condemnation suit are the same as those in an 

eminent domain action.” Breidart v. S. Pac. Co., 61 Cal. 2d 659, 663 n.1 (1964). 

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by the Public Utility Code. “The shareholders are expected to bear some of the costs of acquisitions 

while ratepayers make a partial contribution.” Moreland, 106 Cal. App. 3d at 1022. Thus, “there is 

no direct connection, nor is there a one-to-one correspondence between the size of the 

condemnation award in this proceeding and SDG&E’s ultimate rate increases to the public, which 

will not even be computed until the new facilities are in operation.” Id.

PG&E’s reliance (at 13, 15) on Mercury Casualty Co. v. City of Pasadena, 14 Cal. App. 5th 

917 (2017), and Gutierrez v. San Bernardino County, 198 Cal. App. 4th 831 (2011), is misplaced. 

Mercury Casualty Co. rejected inverse condemnation liability based on damage caused when a tree, 

growing on public land, fell on plaintiffs’ home. 14 Cal. App. 5th at 920. The court explained that 

“the primary consideration in an inverse condemnation action is whether the owner of the damaged 

property if uncompensated would contribute more than his proper share to a public undertaking.” 

Id. at 926 (quoting Albers v. Los Angeles Cty., 62 Cal. 2d 250, 262 (1965) (quotation marks 

omitted). And, in holding that an inverse condemnation action did not lie, the court properly focused 

on the nature of the alleged public use, not on who owned the tree: “we conclude that [the tree] was 

not a work of public improvement because there was no evidence it was planted as part of a planned 

project or design serving a public purpose or use.” Id. at 931. Here, unlike in Mercury, there is no 

dispute that PG&E’s electric transmission is a public use.

Similarly, the Gutierrez court referred to the “loss distribution premise” of inverse 

condemnation, but it actually quoted and applied the well-established rule that “‘the decisive 

consideration is whether the owner of damaged property if uncompensated would contribute more 

than his proper share to the public undertaking.’” 198 Cal. App. 4th at 837 (quoting Holtz, 3 Cal. 

3d at 303). It did not suggest that an injured landowner’s right to compensation depended on the 

defendant’s ability to socialize its liability. Instead, its focus, like that of the California 

Constitution’s Takings Clause, was on making the individual landowner whole.

Finally, PG&E’s efforts to distinguish the judicial decisions that rejected its “socialization” 

argument, Butte Fire Cases, No. JCCP4853, 2018 WL 3371780 (Cal. Super. Ct. Apr. 26, 2018) and 

Harrison v. PG&E Corp., No. CGC17563108, 2018 WL 2447104 (Cal. Super. Ct. May 21, 2018), 

are equally ineffectual. In Butte Fire, the court denied PG&E’s renewed motion for a judicial 

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determination on whether it was subject to inverse condemnation liability, which the company filed 

after the CPUC applied the “prudent manager” standard to deny SDG&E’s application to include 

certain inverse condemnation costs in its rates. 2018 WL 3371780 at *6. Although the court 

recognized that Barham and Pacific Bell “discuss the cost-spreading policy behind inverse 

condemnation, the court [was] not persuaded either decision rested on the assumption that the utility 

would automatically be able to pass on its losses as rate increased to its customers.” Id. at *9. Thus 

“[w]hether PG&E, as a privately owned public utility, should be liable under the doctrine of inverse 

condemnation...is a question of public policy for the Legislature to resolve.” Id. at *1. 

Similarly, Harrison correctly concluded that PG&E’s cost-spreading argument was “flatly 

contradicted by Pacific Bell,” which instead “emphasized the fact that SCE operated a stateauthorized monopoly or quasi-monopoly” under a state franchise. 2018 WL 2447104, at *3, And, 

it noted, when the Pacific Bell Court did address “loss-spreading,” it “couched the rationale in terms 

that emphasized the policy against overburdening individual property owners rather than the policy 

of socializing the costs.” Id. at *3.14

E. The Evidence Suggests That PG&E Already Has Or Will Be Able to Socialize Its 

Inverse Condemnation Liability

The crux of PG&E’s argument is that it faces an untenable “whipsaw” because California 

courts have extended inverse condemnation liability to privately owned utilities “on the express 

assumption that the CPUC would allow private utilities to shift inverse condemnation costs to the 

public through rate increases,” even though “the CPUC has explicitly rejected that critical 

assumption.” Br. at 2. In addition to being contradicted by an unbroken string of California 

decisions, this argument depends on PG&E’s speculation that it will be unable to recoup its inverse 

condemnation liability because its rates are subject to approval by the CPUC. But the evidence 

 14 PG&E also claims (at 12 n.6) that inverse condemnation liability is “unnecessary with respect to private utilities 

because damages are otherwise recoverable under applicable tort law.” This claim is incorrect and ignores both the 

vagaries of tort law and the purpose of inverse condemnation. Injured landowners have a right to compensation when 

their property is taken or damaged for a public use. Cal. Const. art. I, § 19. This right applies regardless of what other 

theories of liability might be available. See City of Oroville v. Superior Court, 7 Cal. 5th 1091, 1106 (2019) (“If 

damage to private property is substantially caused by the inherent risks of the design or construction of a public 

improvement, a public entity must provide just compensation for the damage, whether it was intentional or the result 

of negligence by the public entity.”).

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suggests that, even absent an entitlement to guaranteed rate recovery, PG&E has passed on, or will 

be able to pass on, its potential inverse condemnation liability.

At the outset, PG&E’s woe-is-me argument concerning its ability to recover costs 

associated with inverse condemnation liability is disingenuous. PG&E complains (at 7–8) that, 

“unlike a true public utility that is not subject to any regulatory limits on its ability to raise rates, 

[it] does not control the rates is can charge its customers.” But PG&E fails to mention the most 

important consequence of its status as an privately owned utility: unlike a non-profit public utility, 

PG&E can, and has, reaped enormous profit.

15 Its state-granted monopoly eliminates two key risk 

for PG&E investors: competition and the recovery of invested capital.16 While PG&E may not have 

the ability to unilaterally raise rates, it can, and has, successfully petitioned regulators for a higher 

rate of return. For example, in 2018, PG&E requested, and the CPUC approved, a rate increase of 

nearly $5.00 per month for residential consumers.17

Even taken at face value, PG&E fails to establish any purported “whipsaw,” which it defines 

as privately owned utilities like PG&E being subject to strict liability under the doctrine of inverse 

condemnation for fires they cause without the guaranteed ability to recover inverse condemnation 

damages through rate increases approved by the CPUC. See Br. at 1–6. This argument rests on a 

number of false and speculative premises. 

First, PG&E does not establish that PG&E—or any privately owned utility—has ever or

will ever face a circumstance in which, absent fault, it is unable to spread its costs. When the CPUC 

denied a rate increase to SDG&E to cover “inverse condemnation costs” (the only time the CPUC 

has ever done so), its denial was based on SDG&E’s failure to act reasonably and prudently in 

connection with the events that gave rise to the fires. The CPUC’s definition of “reasonable and 

prudent” closely mirrors the California standard of care in negligence cases. Compare Cal. Pub. 

 15 Sophia Kunthara, PG&E profit rises to $564 million for quarter, revenue declines, SFGate 

https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/PG-E-profit-rises-to-564-million-for-quarter-13363879.php (Nov. 9, 2018) 

(Last Accessed Nov. 13, 2019). 16 Inara Scott, Incentive Regulation, New Business Models, and the Transformation of the Electric Power Industry, 5 

Mich. J. Envtl. & Admin. L. 319 (2016). 17 J.D. Morris, PG&E to raise average monthly bill nearly $5 next month, San Francisco Chronicle, 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/PG-E-to-raisse-average-monthly-gas-bill-nearly-2-14450522.php (Sept. 

18, 2019) (Last Accessed Nov. 13, 2019).

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Utilities Comm’n Dec. 17-11-033, at 10 (Nov. 30, 2017) (“[R]easonable and prudent means...the 

exercise of reasonable judgment in light of the facts known or which should have been known at 

the time the decision was made.”), with Cal. Jury Instr. BAJI 3.45 (requiring “what might 

reasonably be expected of a person of ordinary prudence, acting under similar circumstances”). In 

the SDG&E case, the CPUC closely examined the record and concluded that the utility did not 

meet the “reasonable and prudent” standard because it ignored red flag warnings indicating high 

wind conditions, other fires in the vicinity, a request by Cal Fire to de-energize another transmission 

line, and three faults over a period of 3.5 hours. See id. at 27. In another fire, the CPUC faulted 

SDG&E for a “six-year gap in inspection records” and found it “to be indicative of imprudent 

management.” See id. at 35. In sum, before denying rate recovery, the CPUC engaged in a “fact 

specific” analysis of each fire “taking into account extensive records submitted by the parties, 

industry practice..., and contemporaneous information available to SDG&E at the time of the 

separate ignitions,” and concluded that SDG&E had acted negligently. See id. at 10. 

Notwithstanding its finding that SDG&E acted imprudently, the CPUC emphasized that it 

“was prepared in this case, as it will in the future, to find SDG&E’s conduct is reasonable and 

prudent, if the facts warrant such a conclusion.” See id. at 10–11. Thus, the CPUC may grant rate 

increases to cover inverse condemnation costs, as long as the utility has acted in a “reasonable and 

prudent” manner. See Cal. Pub. Utilities Comm’n Dec. 17-11-033, at *10 (Nov. 30, 2017). The 

CPUC has made no findings regarding PG&E’s prudence in connection with the wildfires at issue 

in these proceedings, and a determination that PG&E is liable in inverse condemnation would not 

automatically entail a finding that it was imprudent, see, e.g., Marshall v. Dep’t of Water & Power 

of Los Angeles, 219 Cal. App. 3d 1124, 1138 (1990) (noting that fault is irrelevant for inverse 

condemnation), and therefore would not preclude PG&E from satisfying the prudent manager 

standard, obtaining interim cost recovery, and socializing its inverse condemnation liability.

Second, citing (at 2–3, 5–7, 12) the example of SDG&E, PG&E falsely suggests that, absent 

recovery through an CPUC interim rate setting, privately owned utilities no way of recovering 

inverse condemnation costs. But PG&E fails to explain that SDG&E was able offset all but $379 

million of the $2.4 billion it paid to settle inverse condemnation claims with funds from insurance, 

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third-party settlements, and rate increases approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 

(“FERC”). See SDG&E Decision, SDG&E Decision, Dk. 4486-4, Orsini Decl. Ex. D, at 2–3. There 

is absolutely no record establishing how much of PG&E’s inverse condemnation costs—if any—

could not be recovered from rate increases through FERC or other sources.18

Third, the CPUC already permits PG&E to charge ratepayers for at least some of its inverse 

condemnation costs. PG&E argues (at 30) that “[t]he California utilities...must provide a greater 

return...to attract investor capital that just as easily may be deployed in favor of less-risky 

alternatives, including utilities in states that do not impose strict inverse condemnation liability.” 

And the CPUC has long recognized that utilities need to maintain a rate of return that attracts 

outside investors and that ensures the utility’s financial ability to provide safe and reliable service. 

See, e.g., Ponderosa Tel. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n, 36 Cal. App. 5th 999, 1004–05 (2019) (CPUC 

acknowledging that a utility’s rate of return should be set “at a level that is adequate to enable the 

utility to attract investors to finance the replacement and expansion of its facilities so it can fulfill 

its public utility service obligation”). Further, the CPUC already permits PG&E to include wildfire 

related costs in its general rate applications. See, e.g., Cost Recovery Mechanisms for Energy 

Utilities (CPUC Oct. 26, 2016) (utilities can use the “Z-factor” mechanisms to account for 

exogenous costs that were unforeseen when rates were established subject to CPUC review and 

approval during the general ratemaking process).

19 Thus, a measure of cost-spreading related to 

inverse condemnation is already baked into PG&E’s rates. See also Notice of Intervention, Protest, 

Request for Hearing, Request for Five-Month Suspension & Reservation of Rights of the California 

Public Utilities Commission, In re So. Cal. Edison Co., No. ER19-1553-000 at 22–23 (FERC May 

2, 2019) (noting that utility return on equity “already includes” a risk premium and that “some, if 

not most, of the wildfire liability risk already would be reflected in the measured cost of equity”). 

Fourth, even supposing PG&E were unable to pass on some fraction of its inverse liability 

to ratepayers, that residual liability (if any) will be spread between and among PG&E’s investors. 

 18 The Wells Declaration, on which PG&E relies to assert that the CPUC sets PG&E’s rates, actually says that 

PG&E’s rates are set by both the CPUC and FERC. See Wells Decl. at 7–8.

19 Available at https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/

Transparency/Commissioner_Meetings/Cost%20Recovery%20Mechanisms%20intra%20rate%20cases%20Oct%202

5%20(2).pptx%20[Read-Only].pdf (Last Accessed Nov. 13, 2019).

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Having profited off of PG&E’s “calculated risks” in building and maintaining its electrical 

distribution system, there is no reason why PG&E’s investors should not absorb some of the costs 

arising from the wildfires. 

Finally, AB 1054 will establish a Wildfire Fund from which PG&E may be able to recoup 

its inverse liability from future wildfires. See Cal. Pub. Util. Code §§ 451.1, 3284. In view of 

individual fire victims’ settled expectation—based on two decades of precedent—that utilities 

would make them whole for property damage caused by their equipment, and given PG&E’s ability 

to shift its future inverse liability to the Wildfire Fund, it would be unfair to leave individual victims 

here in the lurch by divesting them of their ability to recover from PG&E.

F. There Is No “Taking” of PG&E’s Property. 

PG&E asserts that the mere recognition of wildfire victims’ inverse condemnation claims 

would constitute a “taking” in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Any constitutional objection 

PG&E may have to inverse condemnation liability is not relevant to the payment of liability to 

wildfire victims, because monetary payments to third parties generally do not implicate the Takings 

Clause. Instead, if PG&E has a viable constitutional objection at all, it would be to a future decision 

of the CPUC denying it appropriate cost-reimbursement, and not as a defense to any claim here. 

Monetary Liability Owed to a Third Party Does Not “Take” Property

PG&E’s takings claim suffers from a fatal flaw: inverse condemnation liability payments 

to wildfire victims do not operate upon or alter any specific, identifiable property interest of PG&E 

and so cannot effect a taking. Instead, as it pertains to the wildfire victims asserting inverse 

commendation claims in this case, PG&E is in the same position as any other tortfeasor that has a 

responsibility to make whole the persons it has harmed. For this reason, PG&E has no viable 

objection under the Takings Clause to the payment of monetary liability to innocent property 

owners who have been harmed by wildfires that PG&E caused. 

“[T]he existence of a property interest is the threshold question of any takings analysis, and 

it is determined by reference to existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent 

source such as state law.” United States v. King Mountain Tobacco Co., 745 F. App’x 700, 702 

(9th Cir. 2018) (quotation marks omitted) (citing Phillips v. Wash. Legal Found., 524 U.S. 156, 

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164 (1998)); see also In re City of Stockton, 909 F.3d 1256, 1266 (9th Cir. 2018) (noting that the 

Takings Clause is implicated in bankruptcy only if actual property rights exist). In this regard, many 

governmental actions—and certainly civil causes of action in tort, contract, or otherwise—could be 

said to “take” money because they impose costs or liability. 

But such claims are not viable under Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498 (1998). In 

that case, a majority of the Supreme Court held that the Takings Clause is inapplicable to 

governmental action that imposes monetary liability unrelated to a specific, identifiable piece of 

property. That was the conclusion of Justice Kennedy, concurring in the judgment and dissenting 

in part. See id. at 543 (Kennedy, J.) (noting that there was no Takings Clause violation because the 

Act “neither targets a specific property interest nor depends upon any particular property for the 

operation of its statutory mechanisms. The liability imposed on Eastern no doubt will reduce its net 

worth and its total value, but this can be said of any law which has an adverse economic effect.”). 

It was likewise the conclusion of the four dissenters. See id. at 554 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (stating, 

on behalf of four justices, that because “[t]his case involves not an interest in physical or intellectual 

property, but an ordinary liability to pay money and not to the Government, but to third parties," 

there was no taking). As Justice Kennedy put it, “we have been careful not to lose sight of the 

importance of identifying the property allegedly taken, lest all governmental action be subjected to 

examination under the constitutional prohibition against taking without just compensation, with the 

attendant potential for money damages.” Id. at 543 (Kennedy, J.). 

Here, PG&E does not even attempt to try to tie an alleged monetary exaction for inverse 

condemnation liability to a specific property interest. Instead, PG&E’s inverse condemnation 

liability is no different than any other strict liability tort claim. In fact, PG&E is in a far better 

position than the ordinary strict-liability tortfeasor because it may enjoy cost recovery, to the extent 

authorized by the CPUC. Such liability cannot be regarded as any kind of taking.

PG&E’s Takings Argument Is Not Ripe Because the CPUC May Allow 

Recovery of Inverse Condemnation Liability

Any takings argument that PG&E may have in the future is not ripe now because the CPUC 

may allow recovery and PG&E may be able to recover from other sources. The Court may not 

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assume, as PG&E asks it to do, that the CPUC, a state agency, will violate its constitutional rights 

by setting a confiscatory rate. See, e.g., Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 15 (1987).

The requirement of a final decision to create a ripe controversy applies in the takings 

context. Although Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, overruled the state-litigation 

exhaustion requirement of Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank 

of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985), it left intact the requirement that, to be ripe, a takings claim 

must be predicated on a “final decision” rendered by the relevant state entity. 139 S. Ct. 2162, 2169 

(2019).20

There is no such “final decision” here. While PG&E bemoans the fact that it is not entitled 

to automatic cost recovery through rate increases, there is no dispute that the CPUC may allow 

PG&E to recover the cost of inverse condemnation liability so long as PG&E can demonstrate that 

its actions satisfied the standard for cost recovery. See generally Cal. Pub. Util. Code § 451. A 

claim resting on “contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not 

occur at all” is not ripe. Texas v. United States, 523 U.S. 296, 300 (1998) (quotation marks omitted). 

Indeed, PG&E’s own argument (at 12) requires several things must happen before a taking could 

possibly occur here: (1) PG&E would have to be held liable for inverse condemnation; (2) the 

CPUC would have to deny PG&E the ability to recover its inverse condemnation costs. 

Rather than wait for those things to occur, PG&E engages in pure speculation. It urges this 

Court to consider the “economic impact of the potential liabilities due to inverse condemnation,” 

it laments that the capital market has “inferred that PG&E’s equipment may have caused the [Camp] 

fire”; it concedes that there is debate about “what role, if any negligence may have played” in the 

Camp Fire ignition; it concedes the “uncertainty inherent in whether a private utility will be able 

to recover billions of dollars in inverse condemnation costs”; it notes that if inverse condemnation 

 20 See also Sagaponack Realty, LLC v. Vill. of Sagaponack, 778 F. App’x 63, 64 (2d Cir. 2019) (“Knick leaves 

undisturbed the first prong [of ripeness] that a state regulatory agency must render a final decision on a matter before 

a taking claim can proceed.”); Campbell v. United States, 932 F.3d 1331, 1338–40 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (unpublished 

summary order) (applying finality requirement); DM Arbor Court, Ltd. v. City of Houston, No. Civ. H-18-1884, 2019 

WL 4464953, at *3 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 18, 2019) (noting that Knick did not overrule the finality requirement of ripeness 

for takings claim); Chabad Lubavitch of the Quad Cities, Inc. v. City of Bettendorf, 389 F. Supp. 3d 590, 595–96 

(S.D. Iowa 2019) (applying finality requirement to takings claim post-Knick).

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liability is imposed, its risk profile “may be questioned by investors and insurance providers alike.” 

Br. at 18–20 (emphasis added). 

These statements reflect that PG&E’s taking argument is premised upon speculation heaped 

atop speculation. In addition to uncertainty over PG&E’s ultimate liability here, there is no way to 

know whether and to what extent it will be allowed to pass those costs along to ratepayers. Indeed, 

PG&E does not concede that it will be unable to do or that the door to its cost-recovery for inverse 

condemnation liability is barred. Accordingly, its claim is not ripe, and any takings suit must wait 

until the CPUC has decided the question of how much inverse condemnation liability, if any, it will 

include in PG&E’s rates. See generally Penn. Cent. Transp. Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 

137 (1978) (holding that a takings claim was not ripe because “we do not know that appellants will 

be denied any use of any portion of airspace above the Terminal” when the Commission had not 

made final determination,” and that determination relied on a variety of factors).

Requiring a final decision on whether PG&E will be afforded compensation by the 

Commission for its inverse condemnation liability is particularly important because a decision to 

the contrary would disrupt rate-recovery proceedings generally. Unlike many takings plaintiffs—

for example, a homeowner whose property is seized to make way for a new roadway—regulated 

public utilities regularly bear costs later subject to recovery upon approval by their regulator. The 

question of what expenses are appropriately recoverable has been heavily litigated since the 19th 

century in the context only of challenges to laws and regulations that definitively determined 

whether recovery for certain expenses would be allowed and challenges to decisions by regulators 

to set a rate that the utility in question believes is unconstitutionally low.

In that respect, when the government regulates and sets rates for certain regulated private 

entities that have an obligation to serve the public, it has broad authority to set rates in the manner 

it chooses and to allow (or not allow) recovery of expenses so long as the government does not set 

rates that are confiscatory. See, e.g., Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U.S. 299, 307–08 (1989) 

(citing Covington & Lexington Tpk. Rd. Co. v. Sandford, 164 U.S. 578, 597 (1896); FPC v. Nat. 

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Gas Pipeline Co., 315 U.S. 575, 585 (1942); FPC v. Texaco Inc., 417 U.S. 380, 391–92 (1974)).21

The Supreme Court has described this test as mandating results that are “just and reasonable.” FPC 

v. Hope Nat. Gas Co., 320 U.S. 591, 603 (1944). In considering whether a particular rate decision 

is confiscatory, courts consider whether the rates “‘enable the company to operate successfully, to 

maintain its financial integrity, to attract capital, and to compensate its investors for the risks 

assumed.’” Verizon Commc’ns, Inc. v. FCC, 535 U.S. 467, 484 (2002) (quoting Hope Nat. Gas 

Co., 320 U.S. at 605). But “[a] regulated utility has no constitutional right to a profit, and a company 

that is unable to survive without charging exploitative rates has no entitlement to such rates.” Jersey 

Cent. Power & Light Co. v. FERC, 810 F.2d 1168, 1180–81 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (en banc) (citations 

omitted). Here, PG&E seeks to sidestep that entire body of law, by asserting a takings claim before 

it is even possible to ascertain its injury, if any.

PG&E Is not Entitled to Relief That Is Tantamount to an Injunction

PG&E’s takings argument fails because, at best, it may be entitled to compensation from 

the State of California for inverse condemnation liability incurred, not relief that is tantamount to 

an injunction barring wildfire victims from proceeding with their claims. 

In Knick, the Supreme Court held that a property owner whose property has been taken by 

a state without just compensation may bring a Fifth Amendment claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 at 

the time of the taking, but reaffirmed that the additional avenue for compensation it identified “does 

not as a practical matter mean that government action or regulation may not proceed in the absence 

of contemporaneous compensation.” 139 S. Ct. at 2177. Instead, “[g]iven the availability of posttaking compensation, barring the government from acting will ordinarily not be appropriate.” Id. 

Thus, rather than attempting to obtain a declaration and injunction preventing the imposition of 

inverse condemnation liability under California law, the appropriate course of action is for PG&E 

to seek any compensation to which it believes itself constitutionally entitled from the State of 

 21 Unlike the payment of monetary inverse condemnation liability to a wildfire claim, a taking claim brought against 

a government entity in the context of a rate case or challenge to a law governing rate proceedings may have a 

sufficient tie to a specific property interest, the utility’s capital, to constitute a taking. But the question of whether an

appropriate return on capital is allowed can never occur at the time an expenditure is made, only where recovery has 

been disallowed or there is a certainty that recovery will be disallowed. And even there, however, the Supreme Court 

has held that “[a]ny investor paying attention had to realize that he...would simply have to rely on the constitutional 

bar against confiscatory rates.” Verizon Commc’n, Inc. v. FCC, 535 U.S. 467, 528 (2002).

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California “at the time of the taking.” Id.; see also First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of 

Glendale v. Cty. of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 314–15 (1987) (“As its language indicates, and as 

the Court has frequently noted, [the Takings Clause] does not prohibit the taking of private 

property, but instead places a condition on the exercise of that power. This basic understanding of 

the amendment makes clear that it is designed not to limit the governmental interference with 

property rights per se, but rather to secure compensation....”) (citations omitted). 

Imposing Inverse Condemnation Liability on PG&E Would Not Constitute 

a Taking Under Penn Central

Finally, even if PG&E were correct that the payment of inverse condemnation liability could 

constitute a taking, it could never satisfy Penn Central’s three-factor standard for regulatory 

takings, which considers: (1) the economic impact of the governmental action on the plaintiff; 

(2) the extent to which the governmental action interferes with plaintiff’s reasonable investmentbacked expectations; and (3) the nature of the governmental action. Penn Central, 438 U.S. at 124; 

see Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist., 570 U.S. 595, 614 (2013); see also Lingle v. 

Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 544 U.S. 528, 538–39 (2005) (noting that the Penn Central factors apply to 

regulatory takings). 

On the first factor, PG&E asserts (at 18) that the “considerable financial burden” it may 

bear suffices. Not so. To begin with, as explained above, PG&E’s ultimate financial burden—the 

difference between its inverse condemnation liability and the amount it is permitted to recover—is 

uncertain at this time. That aside, PG&E offers no explanation why the “financial burden” it may 

face as a result of inverse condemnation liability meets the mark, in a way that (for example) 

ordinary negligence liability, which could be massive and almost never recoverable, does not. Sure, 

PG&E’s share price may have fallen after it caused billions of dollars in damage through wildfires, 

see Br. at 19, but that is typically what happens when the market believes corporations engaged in 

substantial misconduct. On this point, PG&E’s sole authority is Justice O’Connor’s plurality 

opinion in Eastern Enterprises, 524 U.S. at 498, which was rejected by the majority of the Court 

on the takings issue. PG&E, however, does not even meet the O’Connor standard, which focuses 

in the first instance on proportionality of liability. Id. at 530. Whereas the mining company there 

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was assessed liability unrelated to its own actions, PG&E at most faces liability for the injuries that 

its actions caused, a perfectly proportionate remedy. 

PG&E cannot possibly satisfy the second factor—interference with reasonable investmentbacked expectations—because California law has never premised inverse condemnation liability 

on cost recovery through “socialization.” PG&E’s claim (at 19) that it “relied for nearly two 

decades on the premise in Barham and Pacific Bell that imposition of inverse condemnation 

liability would be offset by the ability to spread the costs through the rate recovery process” rings 

hollow, given that cost recovery was not a part of Barham’s analysis and that Pacific Bell expressly 

rejected the argument that limiting rate regulation could somehow alter inverse condemnation 

liability. There is nothing “reasonable” about reading into the law things that are not there while 

ignoring the inconvenient bits. 

Finally, the third factor—the nature of governmental action—cannot be satisfied even under 

the rationale of Justice O’Connor’s Eastern Enterprises opinion, on which PG&E relies. What 

mattered to Justice O’Connor was that the action there—retroactively imposing on certain 

employers the obligation to fund retired coal miners’ health benefits without respect to the 

employers’ own actions, any promises they made, or “any injury they caused”—was so “unusual” 

as to “implicate[] fundamental principles of fairness underlying the Takings Clause.” 524 U.S. at 

537. There is, of course, nothing unusual or unfair about holding a party liable for the injuries 

caused by its actions, and that is all that California’s law of inverse condemnation does. 

Accordingly, even assuming they are applicable here, none of the three Penn Central factors 

supports PG&E’s argument that inverse condemnation liability for its own actions amounts to a 

taking.

G. Imposing Inverse Condemnation Liability on PG&E Does Not Violate Due 

Process

PG&E rounds out its briefing with a strained “substantive due process” argument that fails 

for basically the same reasons as its taking argument. 

Inverse condemnation liability, the argument goes (at 21–22), is a sufficiently “arbitrary 

and irrational” deprivation of its property that it violates the Due Process Clause. But, in the very 

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next breath, PG&E states that what it actually considers to be “arbitrary and irrational” is the 

possible denial of “the opportunity to spread its losses based on a prudent manager standard 

administered by the CPUC.” Br. at 22. As described above, if PG&E’s beef is with the CPUC and 

its decisions, then PG&E should raise the matter with the CPUC or, if that proves unsuccessful, sue 

the CPUC or the state. The victims of the wildfires PG&E caused obviously have no direct say in 

whether or how the CPUC allows it to recover its costs. 

Even assuming that PG&E’s substantive due process argument is actually directed at 

inverse condemnation liability, as opposed to California law governing cost-recovery, it still fails. 

Whether PG&E will face any injury at all is, at this time, speculative, for the reasons described 

above. And any injury that it may face under California’s inverse condemnation law comes 

nowhere near the outer bounds of substantive due process, which merely requires a “rational 

relationship to a legitimate state interest.” See Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Dep't of Pub. Serv. 

Regulation, 763 F.2d 1106, 1109–12 (9th Cir. 1985). California’s imposition of inverse 

condemnation liability on privately owned utilities is entirely rational to achieve state interests, 

whether or not the state subsequently allows a given utility to recover the costs in its rates. One 

such state interest is compensating property owners whose property was damaged by privately

owned utilities. See Pac. Bell v. City of San Diego, 81 Cal. App. 4th 596, 602 (2000). The state 

likewise has a legitimate interest in requiring privately owned utilities to internalize the damage 

that their activities cause to private property because they reap the financial rewards, regardless of 

whether they were negligent and regardless of whether they are permitted to spread that harm to 

their ratepayers. See Kasel v. Remington Arms Co., 24 Cal. App. 3d 711, 725 (1972). These 

reasonable rationales are more than sufficient to reject PG&E’s due process argument, because 

“only rationality, not a perfect relation is required.” Burlington N. R.R. Co., 763 F.2d at 1110.

The rational-basis standard similarly dooms PG&E’s argument (at 23)—that it is 

“irrational” to apply inverse condemnation liability to a private business subject to general tort 

liability. Inverse condemnation liability is essentially strict liability, a standard that already applies 

to PG&E in circumstances where its electricity constitutes a product. See Pierce v. Pac. Gas & 

Elec. Co., 166 Cal. App. 3d 68 (1985). Extending strict liability to a subset of harm, property 

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damage, caused by transmission activities is in no way irrational; to the contrary, it makes perfectly 

good sense as a means of forcing private entities to internalize costs and of placing costs on the 

least-cost avoider. 

Moreover, PG&E’s principal authority does not even support its argument. State Farm 

Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell concerns limitations on punitive damages not aimed 

at compensating victims from the harms they suffered at the hands of another, but instead at 

punishing unlawful conduct and deterring it from recurring. 538 U.S. 408, 416 (2003). But inverse 

condemnation damages are entirely compensatory and so not subject to the limitation on noncompensatory damages recognized by State Farm.

Finally, PG&E’s complaint that it is not entitled to “retain” the property it damaged 

misunderstands the law. Inverse condemnation liability is often imposed where property is 

damaged but not actually retained by the state. For example, in Albers v. County of Los Angeles, 

the California Supreme Court forced the County of Los Angeles to compensate property owners 

whose property was damaged by a landslide caused by roadwork, but there is no indication that the 

County got to keep the damaged property. 62 Cal. 2d 250 (1965). In this respect, PG&E’s liability 

is no different from any California government entity or private entity charged to carry out public 

uses. Indeed, invasions of property rights subject to the U.S. Constitution’s Takings Clause do not 

necessarily result in any retention of property; instead, as here, occupation for public use is enough. 

See Ark. Game & Fish Com'n v. United States, 568 U.S. 23, 38 (2012) (temporary flooding of land). 

It cannot be the case that liability without retention of property is barred by the Due Process Clause 

when it is, in appropriate circumstances, required by the adjacent Takings Clause. See U.S. Const., 

amend. V.

V. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the Court should deny the relief requested by PG&E. 

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Dated: November 15, 2019 BAKER & HOSTETLER LLP

Authors: Pages 1–4: Robert Julian

Pages 4–35: David Rivkin

By: /s/ Robert A. Julian

 Robert A. Julian

Counsel for The Official Committee of Tort 

Claimants

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Dated: November 15, 2019 

DREYER BABICH BUCCOLA WOOD 

CAMPORA, P 

By: 

. Campora 

Attorneys for Becky Christensen, et al. 

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Dated: Nove ber 15, 2019 

EDELSON P.C. 

Attorneys for a Member of the Official 

Committee of Tort Claimants and Other 

Individual Fire Victims 

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Dated: November /5, 2019 

omey for Creditors ... .....,.....o-L..I ...... _.& 1ST 

EAL TH SYSTEM/WEST and 

FEATHER RIVER HOSPITAL 

D/B/A ADVENTIST HEALTH 

FEATHER RIVER 

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Dated: November~ , 20 19 

RICHARDS LAW FIRM (RLF) 

~:~ Evan ~ Willis, Esq. 

RLF-Representing 81 individual, business, 

commercial, family trust, and personal injwy 

victims of the Camp Fire. 

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