IN THE SUPREME COURT OF 

CALIFORNIA

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS COMPANY,

Petitioner,

v.

THE SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY,

Respondent;

FIRST AMERICAN WHOLESALE LENDING

CORPORATION et al.,

Real Parties in Interest.

S246669

Second Appellate District, Division Five

B283606

Los Angeles County Superior Court

JCCP No. 4861

May 30, 2019

Justice Cuéllar authored the opinion of the court, in which 

Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and Justices Chin, Corrigan, Liu, 

Kruger, and Groban concurred.
1

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

S246669

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

This case concerns a massive, months-long leak from a 

natural gas storage facility located just outside Los Angeles. 

According to the allegations before us, the accident severely 

harmed the economy of a nearby suburb. We must decide if local 

businesses — none of which allege they suffered personal injury 

or property damage — may recover in negligence for income lost 

because of the leak. Our decision turns on whether the entity

that allegedly caused the leak had a tort duty to guard against 

what we and other courts have termed “purely economic losses.” 

The businesses argue that they deserve compensation for 

such losses, that the entity responsible must bear the full costs

of its alleged negligence so tort law can play its essential role of 

forcing people and organizations to take sufficient account of the 

risks they generate, and that courts can sensibly apportion 

liability under these circumstances within meaningful limits. 

Tort law indeed lies in the heartland of our common law system. 

It serves society’s interest in allocating risks and costs to those 

who can better prevent them, and it provides aggrieved parties 

with just compensation. But a proper assessment of competing 

considerations in light of our precedent suggests, and the extent 

of consensus across other jurisdictions confirms, that claims for 

purely economic losses suffered from mere proximity to an 

industrial accident create intractable line-drawing problems for 

courts. So the claims before us are best not treated as 

compensable in negligence.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

2

We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

I.

Because this case comes to us at the demurrer stage, we 

take as true all properly pleaded material facts — but not 

conclusions of fact or law. (Centinela Freeman Emergency 

Medical Associates v. Health Net of California, Inc. (2016) 

1 Cal.5th 994, 1010 (Centinela).)

A.

Near the northwestern corner of Los Angeles lies Porter 

Ranch, a residential neighborhood home to some 30,000 people. 

Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) stores vast 

amounts of natural gas in an underground facility in the hills 

surrounding the community. Known today as the “Aliso 

Facility,” that subterranean storage site was once an oil 

reservoir. It was repurposed about 40 years ago for its present 

use. SoCalGas supplies over 21 million people with natural gas 

from its four storage facilities, but the Aliso Facility is the 

company’s largest. It holds up to 80 billion cubic feet of natural 

gas, which SoCalGas pumps underground at high pressure into 

more than 100 “injection wells.” Because natural gas is odorless, 

SoCalGas adds a nausea-causing chemical to the gas so that 

people notice when a leak happens.

In October 2015, a leak happened — and people noticed. 

An uncontrolled flow of natural gas from the Aliso Facility 

coated nearby neighborhoods in an oily mist. At its peak, the 

leak released some 55 tons of natural gas every hour. Porter 

Ranch residents reported unpleasant odors, headaches, 

dizziness, and respiratory problems. In addition to those 

symptoms, students at local schools complained of nosebleeds 

and vomiting.
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Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

3

That November, the Los Angeles County health 

department directed SoCalGas to establish a relocation program 

available to Porter Ranch residents who lived within a five-mile 

radius of the leak site. The Department of Conservation’s

Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources required 

SoCalGas to provide real-time data about the leak, as well as a 

timeline for stopping it. A month later, with the flow of gas 

slowing but still significant, the Los Angeles County Board of 

Education decided to relocate students and staff from two Porter 

Ranch schools for the duration of the academic year. And a 

month after that, SoCalGas expanded its relocation program, 

citing complaints of poor air quality from people living outside 

the initial five-mile boundary. About 15,000 people were 

relocated in total, scattering to locations dozens — and in some 

cases hundreds — of miles away.

SoCalGas finally got the leak under control in February

2016 — four months after detecting it. All told, about 100,000 

tons of natural gas escaped the Aliso Facility, releasing enough 

greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to erase several years’

worth of efforts to combat climate change in California.

B.

Plaintiffs are Porter Ranch area businesses seeking to 

represent a class of “[a]ll persons and entities conducting 

business within five miles of the [Aliso] Facility from 

October 23, 2015 to [the] present.”1 They allege that SoCalGas’s 

negligence caused the leak. The resulting relocation of many 

Porter Ranch residents devastated the local economy: by 

 

1 We refer to the named plaintiffs in this action collectively 

as “Plaintiffs.”
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

4

depriving local businesses of customers, the environmental 

disaster cost local businesses considerable earnings. 

That harm, Plaintiffs maintain, is ongoing. Sales at 

businesses of all stripes declined sharply, and in many cases, 

stayed down. Enrollment at a local martial arts center, Plaintiff 

King Taekwondo, nosedived during the leak and has not 

recovered. The same was true of a neighborhood day care,

Plaintiff Polonsky Family Day Care. Restaurants, gas stations, 

and pharmacies were affected, too. So were beauty salons, 

doctor’s offices, party suppliers, and a photography store.

With the en masse relocation of Porter Ranch residents 

and the diminution in property values caused by the leak, home 

mortgage lenders and home improvement businesses suffered 

economically as well. Plaintiff First American Realty saw 

clients get cold feet, loans fall out of escrow, and sales tumble. 

A local contractor’s business dropped by 25 percent, as 

customers moved away or decided against home improvements 

for the time being. “Since the onset of the gas leak,” in other 

words, business operations throughout Porter Ranch “have 

either halted or slowed substantially” — and Plaintiffs “have not 

yet recovered from the blow to their bottom lines.” 

Yet no named plaintiff in this action alleges personal 

injury or property damage. Accordingly, Plaintiffs acknowledge 

they are suing SoCalGas to recover solely for the income they 

lost because of the leak.

C.

SoCalGas demurred, arguing that Plaintiffs’ negligence 

claims failed as a matter of law because Plaintiffs were seeking 

to recover for purely economic losses. Overruling the demurrer,

the trial court explained that companies “must face the full cost 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

5

of accidents” they create, or else “they will underinvest in 

precautions.” The trial court acknowledged that economic losses 

not flowing from conventional injury to person or property, such 

as physical damage, are ordinarily not recoverable in tort — and 

that the Court of Appeal had so held in Adams v. Southern 

Pacific Transportation Co. (1975) 50 Cal.App.3d 37 (Adams) on 

facts with some similarities to those here.2 But the trial court 

questioned the wisdom of that rule and reasoned that Adams

was no longer good law after our later decision in J’Aire Corp. v. 

Gregory (1979) 24 Cal.3d 799 (J’Aire).

After SoCalGas petitioned for a writ of mandate, the Court 

of Appeal granted the petition and reversed the trial court. 

(Southern California Gas Leak Cases (2017) 18 Cal.App.5th 581, 

583-584.) The Court of Appeal explained that, under California 

law, it is “not presumed” that a defendant owes a duty of care to 

guard against economic losses unaccompanied by injury to 

person or property. (Id. at p. 591.) And without a “special 

relationship” between the plaintiff and the defendant stemming 

in this context from a “transaction,” the Court of Appeal 

reasoned, California law did not permit recovery for the purely 

economic losses sought by Plaintiffs in this case. (Id. at p. 591.) 

The Court of Appeal also took the view that our decision in 

J’Aire had not rejected Adams in its entirety but instead 

disapproved Adams only “insofar as [it] held a plaintiff can never

recover purely economic losses based on a defendant’s negligent 

conduct.” (Id. at p. 592, italics added.) Because Plaintiffs

 

2 The Court of Appeal held in Adams that employees could 

not sue a railroad for lost wages even though, allegedly, the 

railroad’s negligence caused an explosion that destroyed the 

employees’ workplace, a nearby factory. (See Adams, supra, 50 

Cal.App.3d at pp. 39-41.)
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

6

disclaimed any desire to further amend their complaint, the 

Court of Appeal directed the trial court to sustain SoCalGas’s 

demurrer without leave to amend. (Id. at p. 595.)

II.

Recovery in a negligence action depends as a threshold 

matter on whether the defendant had “ ‘a duty to use due care 

toward an interest of [the plaintiff’s] that enjoys legal protection

against unintentional invasion.’ ” (Centinela, supra, 1 Cal.5th 

at p. 1012, quoting Bily v. Arthur Young & Co. (1992) 3 Cal.4th 

370, 397 (Bily).) We review de novo whether this “ ‘essential 

prerequisite’ ” to recovery is satisfied.

3

 (Centinela, at pp. 1010, 

1012.)

The issue here is whether SoCalGas — separate from 

other legal and practical reasons it had to prevent injury of any 

kind to the public — had a tort duty to guard against negligently 

causing what we and others have called “purely economic 

loss[es].” (Centinela, supra, 1 Cal.5th at p. 1013; see also 532 

Madison Avenue Gourmet Foods, Inc. v. Finlandia Center, 

Inc. (N.Y. 2001) 750 N.E.2d 1097, 1102 (532 Madison).) We use 

that term as a shorthand for “pecuniary or commercial loss that 

does not arise from actionable physical, emotional or 

reputational injury to persons or physical injury to property.” 

(Dobbs, An Introduction to Non-Statutory Economic Loss Claims

(2006) 48 Ariz. L.Rev. 713 (Dobbs).) And although SoCalGas of 

course had a tort duty to guard against the latter kinds of injury, 

 

3 The “ordinary standards of demurrer review still apply” 

even though this case “arrived at the Court of Appeal by the 

unusual path of a writ petition challenging an order overruling 

a demurrer.” (City of Stockton v. Superior Court (2007) 42 

Cal.4th 730, 746-747.)
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

7

we conclude it had no tort duty to guard against purely economic 

losses.

A.

In California, the “general rule” is that people owe a duty 

of care to avoid causing harm to others and that they are thus 

usually liable for injuries their negligence inflicts. (Cabral v. 

Ralphs Grocery Co. (2011) 51 Cal.4th 764, 771 (Cabral).) Under 

Civil Code section 1714, subdivision (a), “[e]veryone is 

responsible . . . for an injury occasioned to another by his or her 

want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her 

property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by 

want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or 

herself.” So at least in cases involving traditionally 

compensable forms of injury — like physical harm to person or 

property — we presume the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty 

of care and then ask whether the circumstances “justify a 

departure” from that usual presumption. (Cabral, at p. 771.) 

In Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108 (Rowland), we 

identified several factors that, among others, may bear on that 

question: (1) “the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff,” (2) “the 

degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury,” (3) “the 

closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and 

the injury suffered,” (4) “the moral blame attached to the 

defendant’s conduct,” (5) “the policy of preventing future harm,” 

(6) “the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences 

to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with 

resulting liability for breach,” and (7) “the availability, cost, and 

prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.” (Id. at p. 113.) At 

core, though, the inquiry hinges not on mere rote application of 

these separate so-called Rowland factors, but instead on a 

comprehensive look at the “ ‘the sum total’ ” of the policy 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

8

considerations at play in the context before us. (Parsons v. 

Crown Disposal Co. (1997) 15 Cal.4th 456, 472 (Parsons), 

quoting Ballard v. Uribe (1986) 41 Cal.3d 564, 572, fn. 6; 

see also T.H. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. (2017) 

4 Cal.5th 145, 164.)

What Civil Code section 1714 does not do is impose a 

presumptive duty of care to guard against any conceivable harm 

that a negligent act might cause. No one doubts, for example, 

that a child suffers gravely when an accident permanently 

disables her parent. But in Borer v. American Airlines, 

Inc. (1977) 19 Cal.3d 441 (Borer), we nevertheless treated the 

prospect of a child recovering for loss of consortium in precisely 

that circumstance as “a wholly new cause of action,” rather than 

a presumptively viable one. (Id. at p. 447.) And we refused to 

recognize such a novel — though quite sympathetic — claim for 

emotional harm largely because that claim, unlike a loss of

consortium claim brought by a spouse, threatened 

indeterminate and disproportionate liability. (Id. at pp. 448-

449, 453; see also Thing v. La Chusa (1989) 48 Cal.3d 644, 666-

668 (Thing) [strictly cabining recovery for negligent infliction of 

emotional distress to ensure meaningful limits on liability].) 

Disabled parents, after all, have parents of their own, along with 

“brothers, sisters, cousins, inlaws, friends, colleagues, and other 

acquaintances who,” in some way, may “be deprived of [their] 

companionship.” (Borer, at p. 446.) In declining to impose a tort 

duty to guard against such harms, we noted in Borer the 

“overwhelming approval” our conclusion enjoyed in other 

jurisdictions and rejected the argument that our analysis was 

somehow “inconsistent with the principles of tort law” 

established in our own. (Id. at pp. 449-450; see also Thing, at 

p. 668, fn. 11.)
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

9

Plaintiffs do cite several cases where we presumed the 

defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care and then asked 

whether the circumstances warranted a departure from that 

baseline presumption. But unlike Borer and Thing, every one of 

those cases involved a traditionally compensable form of harm: 

personal injury. (See Vasilenko v. Grace Family Church (2017) 

3 Cal.5th 1077, 1082 [plaintiff was struck by a car when crossing 

a public street shortly after leaving defendant’s parking lot]; 

Kesner v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1132, 1140-1141 

(Kesner) [employee’s household members were exposed to 

asbestos, causing personal injury and death]; Cabral, supra, 51 

Cal.4th at p. 769 [plaintiff’s husband died after colliding with a 

truck owned by defendant]; John B. v. Superior Court (2006) 38 

Cal.4th 1177, 1181-1183 [defendant infected plaintiff with HIV]; 

Parsons, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 460 [defendant’s truck startled 

plaintiff’s horse, causing the plaintiff to fall to the ground].) And 

in Rowland itself, a faulty faucet in the defendant’s home

mangled tendons and nerves in the plaintiff’s hand. (Rowland, 

supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 110.) So yes, we have frequently begun 

our analysis by presuming a duty of care. But we have not

universally done so.

A case in point is liability in negligence for purely 

economic losses, which is “the exception, not the rule” under our 

precedents. (Quelimane Co. v. Stewart Title Guaranty 

Co. (1998) 19 Cal.4th 26, 58 (Quelimane).) And that holds true 

even though Civil Code section 1714 does not, by its terms, 

“distinguish among injuries to one’s person, one’s property or 

one’s financial interests.” (J’Aire, supra, 24 Cal.3d at p. 806; 

see Centinela, supra, 1 Cal.5th at p. 1013; Dobbs, supra, 48 Ariz. 

L.Rev. at p. 713 [explaining that “[n]egligently inflicted 

economic loss that results from some other kind of injury may 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

10

be recoverable, but recovery for stand-alone economic loss is 

frequently rejected”].) 

The primary exception to the general rule of no-recovery 

for negligently inflicted purely economic losses is where the 

plaintiff and the defendant have a “special relationship.”

(J’Aire, supra, 24 Cal.3d at p. 804.) What we mean by special 

relationship is that the plaintiff was an intended beneficiary of

a particular transaction but was harmed by the defendant’s 

negligence in carrying it out. Take, for example, Biakanja v. 

Irving (1958) 49 Cal.2d 647 (Biakanja). There, we held that the 

intended beneficiary of a will could recover for assets she would 

have received if the notary had not been negligent in preparing 

the document. (Id. at pp. 650-651.) A special relationship 

existed between the intended beneficiary and the notary in 

Biakanja, we emphasized, because “the ‘end and aim’ of the 

transaction” between the nonparty decedent and the notary was 

to ensure that the decedent’s estate passed to the intended 

beneficiary. (Id. at p. 650.) 

For similar reasons, in J’Aire we held that a special 

relationship existed between a restaurant operator and a 

contractor hired by a third-party property owner to renovate the 

space rented by the restaurant operator. (J’Aire, supra, 24 

Cal.3d at pp. 804-805.) So when the contractor negligently 

failed to complete the construction work on time, the restaurant 

operator could recover purely economic losses it suffered as a 

result.4 (J’Aire, at pp. 804-805.)

 

4 Having concluded in J’Aire that recovery for foreseeable 

purely economic losses “should not be foreclosed simply because 

it is the only injury that occurs,” we disapproved the Court of 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

11

Discerning whether there is a special relationship 

justifying liability of this sort can nonetheless be a subtle 

enterprise. In both Biakanja and J’Aire we emphasized that our 

duty determination rested not just on (i) “the extent to which the 

transaction was intended to affect the plaintiff,” but also on a 

subset of the Rowland factors relevant to the circumstances 

before us in those cases: (ii) “the foreseeability of harm to the 

plaintiff,” (iii) “the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered 

injury,” (iv) “the closeness of the connection between the 

defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered,” (v) “the moral 

blame attached to the defendant’s conduct,” and (vi) “the policy 

of preventing future harm.” (J’Aire, supra, 24 Cal.3d at p. 804, 

citing Biakanja, supra, 49 Cal.2d at p. 650.) 

Our subsequent decision in Bily, however, underscored for 

negligence cases involving purely economic losses what is true 

of all negligence cases. Deciding whether to impose a duty of 

care turns on a careful consideration of the “ ‘the sum total’ ” of 

the policy considerations at play, not a mere tallying of some 

finite, one-size-fits-all set of factors. (Bily, supra, 3 Cal.4th at 

p. 397, quoting Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728, 734 (Dillon).) 

In Bily, investors in a failed company sued the company’s 

auditor for financial losses they allegedly suffered due to the 

auditor’s negligent preparation of a public report on the 

 

Appeal’s decision in Adams “[t]o the extent that [it] h[eld] that 

there can be no recovery for negligent interference with 

prospective economic advantage.” (J’Aire, supra, 24 Cal.3d at 

pp. 806-807 & fn. 3.) So as the Court of Appeal recognized, 

J’Aire disapproved Adams only to the extent it purported to 

impose an absolute rule that a plaintiff can never recover for 

negligently inflicted purely economic losses.
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Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

12

company’s financial well-being. (See Bily at pp. 376-379.) We 

rejected those claims. (See id. at p. 376.) Despite 

acknowledging that financial losses to investors from 

negligently prepared audit reports are “certainly” foreseeable,5

we held that an auditor “owes no general duty of care regarding 

the conduct of an audit to persons other than the client.” (Bily, 

at pp. 376, 398.) 

In requiring more than mere foreseeability for imposing a 

duty of care in Bily, we appreciated the need to safeguard the 

efficacy of tort law by setting meaningful limits on liability. 

(Bily, supra, 3 Cal.4th at pp. 398-399.) Citing decisions from our 

court limiting recovery for emotional harms based on similar 

concerns, we explained that although foreseeability “ ‘may set 

tolerable limits for most types of physical harm, it provides 

virtually no limit on liability for nonphysical harm.’ ” (Id. at 

p. 398, quoting Thing, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 663.) After all, on 

“ ‘clear judicial days’ ” courts “ ‘can foresee forever.’ ” (Bily, at 

p. 399, quoting Thing, at p. 668.) So although exposure to 

liability often provides an important incentive for parties to 

internalize the social costs of their actions, we were concerned 

that allowing the countless people who rely on public audit 

reports to recover “pure economic loss suffered” due to a shoddy 

audit would “raise[] the spectre of vast numbers of suits and 

limitless financial exposure.” (Bily, at p. 400.) The resulting 

universe of potential claims would not only raise difficult 

line-drawing questions for courts, it might deter socially 

beneficial behavior. (Id. at pp. 400, 404.) That result was 

 

5 We of course determine foreseeability not by reference to 

specific parties but instead based on the general sort of conduct 

at issue. (See Kesner, supra, 1 Cal.5th at p. 1145.)
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Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

13

unacceptable. (Id. at p. 406.) We therefore limited auditor 

liability to claims for negligent misrepresentation brought by 

plaintiffs who — like the plaintiffs in Biakanja and J’Aire —

were “specifically intended beneficiaries” of the defendant’s 

conduct. (Bily, at pp. 406-407.) 

To be sure, several additional considerations cut further 

in favor of strictly circumscribing recovery in Bily. In the audit 

context, “[t]he client typically prepares [the] financial 

statements” on which the auditor relies in preparing a 

report — and that report “is not a simple statement of verifiable 

fact” but instead “a professional opinion based on numerous and 

complex factors.” (Bily, supra, 3 Cal.4th at pp. 399-400.) The 

plaintiffs in Bily were also particularly “sophisticated” and had 

“efficient means of self-protection,” such as diversifying their 

investment portfolios or conducting their own due diligence. (Id.

at p. 406.) More fundamentally, purely economic losses flowing 

from a financial transaction gone awry — which were at issue 

in Biakanja, J’Aire, Bily, and our other negligence cases to date 

about purely economic losses6 — “are primarily the domain of 

contract and warranty law or the law of fraud, rather than of 

negligence.” (Aas v. Superior Court (2000) 24 Cal.4th 627, 636

(Aas), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in Rosen 

 

6

(See, e.g., Goonewardene v. ADP, LLC (2019) 6 Cal.5th 

817, 820 [purely economic losses stemming from payroll 

company’s alleged miscalculation of wages]; Centinela, supra, 

1 Cal.5th at p. 1013 [purely economic losses stemming from 

health care plan’s delegation of financial responsibility to pay 

emergency service claims to third parties]; Quelimane, supra, 

19 Cal.4th at pp. 57-60 [purely economic losses stemming from 

defendant’s refusal to issue title insurance policies on real 

property].)
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Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

14

v. State Farm General Ins. Co. (2003) 30 Cal.4th 1070, 1079-

1080 (Rosen).) 

We nonetheless acknowledged in Bily the “need to limit 

liability for [purely] economic loss[es]” even in the absence of 

those additional considerations. (Bily, supra, 3 Cal.4th at 

p. 400, fn. 11.) In doing so, we pointed to a hypothetical scenario 

similar in many ways to the case now before us. We considered 

a situation where “a defendant negligently causes an automobile 

accident that blocks a major traffic artery such as a bridge or 

tunnel.” (Ibid.; see also Kinsman Transit Co. (2d Cir. 1968) 388 

F.2d 821, 825, fn. 8 [using a similar illustration]; Rabin, Tort 

Recovery for Economic Loss: A Reassessment (1985) 37 Stan.

L.Rev. 1513, 1536-38 [same].) That defendant would of course 

be liable for “personal injuries and property damage suffered in 

such an accident.” (Bily, at pp. 400-401, fn. 11.) But would “any 

court,” we continued, “allow recovery by the myriad [other] third 

parties who might claim [purely] economic losses because the 

bridge or tunnel” was blocked? (Id. at p. 401, fn. 11.) Based on 

concerns about limitless liability and unending litigation, as 

well as on long-standing legal consensus, we considered that 

prospect “doubtful.” (Ibid.)

B.

What we recognized in Bily fits with numerous decisions 

from other jurisdictions — as well as the Restatement of Torts. 

That consensus cuts sharply against imposing a duty of care to 

avoid causing purely economic losses in negligence cases like 

this one: where purely economic losses flow not from a financial 

transaction meant to benefit the plaintiff (and which is later 

botched by the defendant), but instead from an industrial 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

15

accident caused by the defendant (and which happens to occur 

near the plaintiff).

1.

Concerned about line-drawing problems and potentially

overwhelming liability, courts across the country have rejected 

recovery for purely economic losses stemming from man-made 

calamity. Take the New York Court of Appeals’ decision in 

532 Madison. There, part of a 39-story office tower collapsed, 

shutting down more than a dozen bustling blocks of midtown 

Manhattan for several weeks. (See 532 Madison, supra, 750 

N.E.2d at p. 1099.) Among the plaintiffs in 532 Madison were 

local businesses who alleged that would-be customers “were 

unable to gain access to their stores” due to the disaster, forcing 

the plaintiffs to shut down for an extended period of time. (Id.

at pp. 1099-1100.) They sued on behalf of themselves and “all 

other business entities” operating within the affected city 

blocks. (Ibid.) 

The plaintiffs in 532 Madison sought compensation for the 

income they lost from the tower collapse. The New York Court 

of Appeals responded by declining to hold “that a landowner 

owes a duty to protect an entire urban neighborhood against 

purely economic losses.” (532 Madison, supra, 750 N.E.2d. at 

pp. 1102.) It instead “limit[ed] the scope of defendants’ duty to 

those who ha[d], as a result of th[e] [collapse], suffered personal 

injury or property damage.” (Id. at p. 1103.) The court 

explained that this limitation provided “a principled basis for 

reasonably apportioning liability” that was necessary to prevent 

potentially crushing liability to “an indeterminate group in the 

affected areas” who could prove “financial losses directly 

traceable to the” collapse. (Ibid.) Adopting that rule, the court 
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Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

16

added, was what “historically courts ha[d] done” with similar 

negligence claims. (Ibid.) 

Indeed: the Illinois Supreme Court, for example, reached 

the same result for similar reasons in litigation flowing from a 

flood caused by human error that inundated downtown Chicago 

in 1992. (See In re Chicago Flood Litigation (Ill. 1997) 680 

N.E.2d 265, 268, 276.) Consider also the West Virginia Supreme 

Court of Appeals’ decision in Aikens v. Debow (W.Va. 2000) 541 

S.E.2d 576, the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision in Nebraska 

Innkeepers, Inc. v. Pittsburgh-Des Moines Corp. (Iowa 1984) 345 

N.W.2d 124, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s 

decision in Stop & Shop Companies, Inc. v. Fisher (Mass. 1983) 

444 N.E.2d 368, and the Seventh Circuit’s decision applying 

Wisconsin law in Leadfree Enterprises, Inc. v. U.S. Steel Corp.

(7th Cir. 1983) 711 F.2d 805. Those cases all concerned bridge 

accidents similar to the hypothetical we discussed in Bily — and 

those cases all rejected attempts by affected businesses to 

recover in negligence for purely economic losses resulting from 

those accidents. (See Aikens, at pp. 579, 589; Nebraska 

Innkeepers, at pp. 125, 128; Stop & Shop, at pp. 371-373; 

Leadfree Enterprises, at pp. 806, 809; see also American 

Petroleum and Transport, Inc. v. City of New York (2d Cir. 2013) 

737 F.3d 185, 187, 196-197 [rejecting under federal maritime 

law recovery for purely economic losses stemming from a 

drawbridge malfunction].) Among their concerns were the 

endless “ripple effects of a negligence claim based upon pure 

economic loss.” (Aikens, at p. 591; see also Dundee Cement Co. 

v. Chemical Laboratories, Inc. (7th Cir. 1983) 712 F.2d 1166, 

1172 [opining that allowing recovery in negligence for purely 

economic losses may unleash “multiversant possibilities” for 

litigation that “are staggering to the imagination”].) 
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Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

17

Similar rationales buttressed the Court of Appeals for the 

District of Columbia’s decision in Aguilar v. RP MRP 

Washington Harbour, LLC (D.C. 2014) 98 A.3d 979 (Aguilar) 

and the Connecticut Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. 

O & G Industries, Inc. (Conn. 2015) 126 A.3d 569. Like the 

California Court of Appeal’s decision in Adams, those cases 

rejected claims for lost wages brought by employees whose 

workplaces were forced to close by a man-made disaster — a 

flood in Aguilar and an explosion in Lawrence. (See Aguilar, at 

pp. 981, 983; Lawrence, at pp. 571, 585.) In fact, more than a 

half century ago we ourselves approved a decision from an 

intermediate appellate court in Ohio that arrived at the same 

conclusion on very similar facts — another explosion causing the 

closure of a nearby workplace. (See Fifield Manor v. Finston

(1960) 54 Cal.2d 632, 636, citing Stevenson v. East Ohio Gas Co.

(Ohio Ct.App. 1946) 73 N.E.2d 200, 201-204.)

Federal courts sitting in admiralty have dealt with 

industrial accidents perhaps most like the one before us: 

maritime spills of oil and other pollutants. Leaving aside one 

narrow exception not applicable here, they too have refused to 

impose a duty of care to guard against purely economic losses. 

To wit: in State of Louisiana ex rel. Guste v. M/V Testbank 

(5th Cir. 1985) 752 F.2d 1019 (Testbank), two ships collided in 

the Mississippi River Gulf. (Id. at p. 1020.) Some 12 tons of a 

toxic chemical called pentachlorophenol rushed into the water 

and caused the suspension of fishing, shrimping, and other 

maritime activities across four hundred square miles of marsh 

and waterways. (Ibid.) Among the plaintiffs were businesses 

like boat rental operators, seafood restaurants, and tackle and 

bait shops. (Id. at pp. 1020-1021.) They sued to recover “for 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

18

economic loss unaccompanied by physical damage” that the spill 

had inflicted. (Id. at p. 1021.) 

The Fifth Circuit rejected those claims. (See Testbank,

supra, 752 F.2d at pp. 1028-1029.) The court echoed concerns 

about “wave upon wave of successive economic consequences” 

and stressed that “[t]hose who would delete the requirement of 

physical damage have no rule or principle to substitute,” save 

perhaps letting the trier of fact determine case-by-case, 

whim-by-whim which claims for purely economic losses warrant 

recovery. (Id. at p. 1028.) The Fifth Circuit further explained 

that “to the extent that economic analysis” mattered, it favored 

rejecting recovery for purely economic losses. (Id. at p. 1029.) 

That was because defendants in industrial accident 

cases — despite their frequently deep pockets — will have more 

difficulty obtaining third-party insurance coverage against 

purely economic losses than will individual plaintiffs seeking 

comparable first-party insurance. (See ibid.) Defendants’ 

potential liability for purely economic losses in such cases is 

massive and indeterminate. (Ibid.) So insurance companies 

cannot feasibly offer them comprehensive coverage — or even 

fix a sensible premium based on actuarial measurement. (Ibid.) 

Plaintiffs’ “own potential losses,” by contrast, “are finite and 

readily discernible.” (Ibid.) They can therefore obtain insurance 

to cover them — perhaps relatively cheaply. (Ibid.; see also 

Posner, Common-Law Economic Torts: An Economic and Legal 

Analysis (2006) 48 Ariz. L.Rev. 735, 737-738.)

Faced with an oil spill diverting a container ship at 

substantial cost, the First Circuit in Barber Lines A/S v. M/V 

Donau Maru (1st Cir. 1985) 764 F.2d 50 denied recovery in 

negligence for those purely economic losses. The First Circuit’s 

analysis in many ways mirrored the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning in 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

19

Testbank. (See Barber Lines, at pp. 50-52.) Through the pen of 

then-Judge Breyer, the First Circuit explained that the “number 

of persons suffering foreseeable financial harm in a typical 

accident” — like a car crash — “is likely to be far greater than 

those who suffer traditional (recoverable) physical harm.” (Id.

at p. 54.) And when it comes to industrial accidents, that 

proliferation of potential liability for purely economic losses is 

even more dramatic. (See ibid.) An oil spill, for instance, 

“foreseeably harms” not just those whose property is “covered 

with oil,” but also “blockaded ships, marina merchants, 

suppliers of those firms, the employees of marina businesses and 

suppliers, the suppliers’ suppliers, and so forth.” (Ibid.) That 

indeterminate liability, the First Circuit continued, made 

third-party insurance coverage against purely economic losses 

less feasible than first-party insurance. (Ibid.) It also risked 

over-deterring socially productive activities. (Id. at p. 55.) And 

unable to “distinguish between, say, oil spill accidents and 

tunnel accidents,” the First Circuit rejected the idea of adopting 

different duty rules depending on the particular “industrial 

context” at issue. (Id. at p. 57.) 

The narrow exception mentioned earlier, to which we now

turn, does not help Plaintiffs. Applying maritime law and 

California law alike in Union Oil Co. v. Oppen (9th Cir. 1974) 

501 F.2d 558, the Ninth Circuit held that commercial fishermen 

could recover in negligence for the “diminution of aquatic life” 

caused by an oil spill. (Id. at pp. 563, 570.) But that was because 

theirs was “a pecuniary loss of a particular and special nature” 

grounded in the time-worn principle that “seamen are the 

favorites of admiralty.” (Id. at pp. 567, 570; see also Curd v. 

Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC (Fla. 2010) 39 So.3d 1216, 1228.) 

Recovery in Union Oil was therefore tightly circumscribed: it 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

20

was “limited to the class of commercial fishermen” whose 

livelihoods depend on the flourishing of aquatic life in the 

commons of the sea and thus did not include, for example,

recreational fisherman whose “ ‘Sunday piscatorial pleasure’ ” 

depended on angling in the same waters. (Union Oil, at p. 570, 

quoting Oppen v. Aetna Ins. Co. (9th Cir. 1973) 485 F.2d 252, 

260.) Indeed, the Ninth Circuit further cautioned that its 

narrow holding based on unique features of the maritime 

context did “not open the door to claims” from others “whose 

economic or personal affairs were discommoded by the oil spill.” 

(Union Oil, at p. 570.) Not “every decline in the general 

commercial activity of every business” nearby, the court 

reasoned, was “a legally cognizable injury for which the 

defendants may be responsible.” (Ibid.) So in Union Oil — as 

in every case discussed so far — recovery in negligence for 

purely economic losses was the exception, not the rule.

Against all these decisions, only the New Jersey Supreme 

Court’s opinion in People Express Airlines, Inc. v. Consolidated 

Rail Corp. (N.J. 1985) 495 A.2d 107 (People Express) cuts 

definitively the other way. In People Express, a railroad fire 

forced a nearby terminal at Newark International Airport to 

shut down for twelve hours — a terminal housing the plaintiff’s 

business. (See id. at p. 108.) The plaintiff brought a negligence 

claim for income lost as a result –– a claim the New Jersey 

Supreme Court permitted to proceed. (Id. at pp. 108, 116.) The 

court imposed a tort duty to guard against purely economic 

losses where there is “an identifiable class with respect to whom 

[the] defendant knows or has reason to know are likely to suffer 

such damages from its conduct.” (Id. at p. 116.) The court 

stressed “that an identifiable class of plaintiffs is not simply a 

foreseeable class of plaintiffs” — such as happenstance 
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Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

21

bystanders — but instead a class that is “particularly 

foreseeable in terms of the type of persons or entities comprising 

the class, the certainty or predictability of their presence, the 

approximate numbers of those in the class, as well as the type 

of economic expectations disrupted.” (Ibid.) 

Yet decades after the demise of the airline that gave the 

case its name, People Express remains “a lonely outpost.” 

(Rabin, Respecting Boundaries and the Economic Loss Rule in 

Tort (2006) 48 Ariz. L.Rev. 857, 858.) Its relatively ad hoc

standard, embodied in a fact-intensive “ ‘particular 

foreseeability’ ” test, has been avoided by other courts with — as 

one scholar put it — “a striking degree of unanimity.” (Ibid.; 

see also 532 Madison, supra, 750 N.E.2d at p. 1103 [declining to 

follow People Express]; Aguilar, supra, 98 A.3d at p. 984 

[same].)7

2.

Little wonder the Restatement of Torts takes the 

dominant view. Although acknowledging that “[d]uties to avoid 

the unintentional infliction of economic loss” exist in certain

recognized circumstances, the latest Restatement provides that

there is “no general duty to avoid the unintentional infliction of 

economic loss on another.” (Rest.3d, Torts, Liability for 

 

7 Although the Alaska Supreme Court discussed People 

Express in a positive light in Mattingly v. Sheldon Jackson 

College (Alaska 1987) 743 P.2d 356, it did so while allowing a 

contractor to recover purely economic losses suffered from the 

collapse of a trench that was dug specifically “so that his 

employees could work in it.” (Id. at pp. 359-361.) Mattingly thus 

resembles our special relationship precedents far more so than 

People Express — or this case.
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Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

22

Economic Harm (Tent. Draft. No. 1, Apr. 4, 2012) § 1 

(Restatement T.D. 1).) 

In justifying that position, the Restatement echoes 

widespread judicial concern that purely economic losses 

“proliferate more easily than losses of other kinds” and “are not 

self-limiting” in the same way. (Restatement T.D. 1, § 1, com. c.) 

Those characteristics, the Restatement explains, threaten 

“liabilities that are indeterminate and out of proportion 

to [a defendant’s] culpability,” and with them “exaggerated 

pressure to avoid an activity altogether.” (Restatement T.D. 1, 

§ 1, com. c.) For centuries, in fact, similar concerns have 

justified strict limits on private recovery for a public nuisance. 

(See 4 Blackstone, Commentaries 167 [noting that a public 

nuisance is usually not privately actionable because “it would be 

unreasonable to multiply suits by giving every man a separate 

right of action”]; accord Rest.3d Torts, Liability for Economic

Harm (Tent. Draft. No. 2, Apr. 7, 2014) § 8, com. c. (Restatement 

T.D. 2); Civ. Code, § 3493 [originally enacted in 1872].)

Only when the foregoing considerations are “weak or 

absent” — such as in Biakanja and J’Aire, but not in Bily — does 

a duty to guard against purely economic losses exist under the 

Restatement approach to negligence claims. (See Restatement 

T.D. 1, supra, § 1, com. d; see also Restatement T.D. 2, supra,

§ 7, com. a [using 532 Madison’s facts and the court’s holding as 

an illustration of the Restatement view].) But in this case, as in 

the mine run of man-made disaster cases, those rationales apply 

with full force.

C.

The allegations before us underscore the ineluctable

difficulty associated with imposing a duty to guard against 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

23

purely economic losses in negligence cases like this one. It may 

be possible to quantify the profits any one business lost because 

of an industrial accident, but imposing such a duty would 

nevertheless create line-drawing problems across — quite 

literally — space and time.8 So although our duty determination 

must ultimately “occur[] at a higher level of generality” than 

would a jury’s analysis of fact-intensive issues like breach and 

causation (Kesner, supra, 1 Cal.5th at p. 1144), we examine 

some particulars of Plaintiffs’ claims to illustrate those two sets 

of persistent line-drawing problems.

1.

We lack clear spatial bounds within which to cabin claims 

like those asserted here. 

This case does not involve a so-called special relationship 

under our precedents. Plaintiffs concede — as they must — that 

their only relevant ties to SoCalGas are having the misfortune 

of operating near the Aliso Facility. Accordingly, they propose 

to limit the class they seek to represent based on geographic 

proximity alone. Putative class members here are businesses 

operating “in the area within five miles” of the leak, a space 

which Plaintiffs characterize as “the precise area from which 

residents were evacuated.”

What is far from clear is why the five-mile line means 

anything. Others beyond that boundary were also affected. We 

discern no compelling basis for us to let a business operating 

 

8 We express no view on whether, or to what extent, these 

line-drawing problems persist (or dissipate) in cyberspace. (See, 

e.g., Dittman v. UPMC (Pa. 2018) 196 A.3d 1036, 1038 

[considering whether to impose a tort duty to guard against 

“purely pecuniary” losses stemming from a data breach].)
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

24

4.9 miles away recover its lost profits but deny such recovery to

another business operating 5.1 miles away. Nor is it clear what 

we should do about a third business operating 6 miles away 

whose balance sheet was hit just as hard by the leak and 

ensuing evacuation — or perhaps a fourth business operating 

10 miles away, whose income depends on supplying Porter 

Ranch businesses or offering services to its residents. Similar 

questions arise regarding employees of businesses operating 

within the five-mile mark but who live outside it — or even well 

outside it. (This is Los Angeles we’re talking about.) They might

have lost wages during a temporary business slowdown — or

even lost their jobs if their employers were forced to cut back 

permanently. Those employees might not be included in 

Plaintiffs’ proposed class, but their losses are foreseeable, too. 

They could come to court next in lawsuits of their own. And if 

we were to permit recovery for purely economic losses in this 

case, we don’t see how we could justify denying it in that one. 

Most of the foregoing difficulties emerge even when an 

evacuation zone is set in stone. But here the lines drawn were 

traced in sand. Plaintiffs’ own complaint acknowledges that, a

few weeks after the leak was detected, the evacuation zone was 

extended beyond the initial five-mile mark. Why businesses 

operating outside the original boundary but inside the new one 

should not get to recover their equally real and foreseeable 

financial losses we do not know.

Using the boundary of an evacuation zone as a liability 

line might not just lack predictability. In certain circumstances, 

it could also inject a dangerous incentive into disaster response 

efforts. Consider how a company taking after Justice Oliver 

Wendell Holmes’s infamous “bad man” — that is, a company 

that “cares nothing for an ethical rule” and thus cares “only for 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

25

the material consequences” of its actions — might respond to an 

evacuation zone rule. (Holmes, The Path of the Law (1897) 10 

Harv. L.Rev. 457, 459, 461; see also Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker

(2008) 554 U.S. 471, 501-502 [looking to “Justice Holmes’s ‘bad 

man’ ” in a tort case brought under federal maritime law].) If 

companies face liability in negligence only for traditionally 

compensable harms, their financial incentive with respect to 

evacuations points in one direction: caution. To minimize the 

risk of, and their liability for, harm to people and property, 

companies under that legal regime may indeed seek (or at least 

not try to avoid) large evacuation zones. But imposing liability 

for purely economic losses — bounded only by the size of the 

evacuation zone — would blunt that otherwise sharp financial 

incentive for caution. The larger the evacuation zone, the larger 

a company’s potential liability for purely economic losses. So 

under that rule, a company taking after Justice Holmes’s bad 

man would face a newly vexing cost-benefit analysis: will an 

evacuation prevent enough physical damage to offset the purely 

economic losses it is sure to cause? The calculus of a ruthlessly

self-interested company would tend to prioritize maximizing its

own economic return, not minimizing the risk of harm to people 

and property. And where it expects an evacuation to harm its 

bottom line, our proverbial “bad company” might take steps to 

confine or prevent one. 

Such steps might include, most obviously, overt pressure 

on public officials to roll back or eliminate a proposed 

evacuation. But that’s not the only possibility. Public officials 

must often rely on company information to know what scale of 

risk the community faces. Case in point: during the very 

disaster at issue here, authorities allegedly demanded from 

SoCalGas real-time data about the leak — and a timeline for 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

26

ending it. So public officials might simply be kept in the dark. 

That’s bad enough when, as here, the public health concerns are 

things like nausea and nosebleeds. But it would be much worse 

when, on different facts, the stakes are life and death.

Nor is it always simple to decide what counts as an 

evacuation, or to resolve claims for purely economic losses where 

the disaster in question never triggered an evacuation. Some 

evacuations are mandatory, others are voluntary. And 

sometimes public officials issue public safety warnings without 

telling people to leave the area. An evacuation zone rule would 

require a coherent way to decide which sorts of government 

action count and which ones don’t. We do not see one. What is 

more, the utility of an evacuation zone rule depends on there 

being at least some sort of evacuation. So adopting an 

evacuation zone rule would be of no help in cases where nothing 

remotely approaching an evacuation happens, but the economic 

effects are nevertheless severe. (Consider, for instance, an oil 

spill at sea that leaves dry land mostly untouched.) Faced with 

all this potential for negative consequences and doctrinal 

confusion, “we would be acting rashly to adopt a rule treating” 

evacuation zones as talismanic. (Intel Corp. v. Hamidi (2003) 

30 Cal.4th 1342, 1363 [declining to extend trespass liability into 

cyberspace based on similar doctrinal and practical concerns].)

Without adopting a (not so) bright-line evacuation zone 

rule, the alternative is applying a fact-intensive, case-by-case 

standard à la People Express. But we have already 

experimented with an analogous approach regarding recovery 

for negligent infliction of emotional distress. It did not go well. 

In Thing, we lamented the “arbitrary results” and the 

“inconsistent and often conflicting” body of law that approach

produced. (Thing, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 662.) Which is why we 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

27

retreated from an ad hoc standard and imposed instead a 

hard-and-fast rule. (Id. at pp. 667-668.) 

We have not forgotten that experience. Today, we are 

confronted with hundreds of claims brought by hundreds of 

businesses stemming from one industrial accident — and that’s 

just the artificially limited class Plaintiffs seek to represent, not 

the full universe of potential claimants whose pocketbooks were 

adversely (and foreseeably) affected by the leak. We see no 

workable way to limit geographically who may recover purely 

economic losses. Without one, the dangers of indeterminate 

liability, over-deterrence, and endless litigation are at their 

apex.

2.

Nor do we see a viable way to limit temporally what purely 

economic losses could be recovered here.

Plaintiffs allege that they “have been and continue to be 

heavily impacted by the gas leak.” (Italics added.) That is 

possible because Plaintiffs complain not of being forced to shut 

down during the disaster — no named plaintiff squarely alleges 

that — but of losing customers due to the exodus of 

neighborhood residents. And even though the leak is over, they

allege that, for as long as the Aliso Facility remains in use, 

“business will never return to Porter Ranch as usual.” (Italics 

added.) So Plaintiffs are, in effect, seeking pro rata recovery for 

the past, present, and future economic toll the leak allegedly 

had, has, and will have on Porter Ranch. These are claims 

without end. 

True: we could conceivably cabin recovery for purely 

economic losses to those suffered during the disaster alone. Or 

we could allow recovery only for such losses suffered during a 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

28

business closure, not merely for systemic hits to economic 

demand. Yet upon closer inspection, the alluring simplicity of 

both approaches quickly proves to be a mirage. 

The “during the disaster” option would require a way of 

determining precisely what the words “during” and “disaster” 

mean in a given case. That will not always be easy. Even 

assuming the beginning and end of most disasters can be easily 

fixed by the closing of a wayward valve or its equivalent, 

distinctions between one disaster (say, a leak of flammable fluid) 

and another (a fire) can be unstable. Moreover, disasters like 

the gas leak at issue here happen over an extended period of 

time, but other industrial accidents (like tower collapses or 

railroad explosions) happen in an instant. So for the latter sort 

of disaster, we might have to use the duration of any subsequent 

evacuation (if there is one) to time-bound the ensuing claims for 

purely economic losses. But doing that would inject into disaster 

response efforts the very same dangerous incentives and other 

problems discussed above. 

The “business closure” option, for its part, would likely 

prove self-defeating. Requiring affected businesses to close as a 

prerequisite for recovery in negligence would lock them into a 

dilemma: shut down and lose any income you might have 

earned — or stay open and lose any tort claim you might have 

brought. Difficult though the choice could be for some, many 

businesses might rationally decide they are better off shutting 

down. Plaintiff Mediterranean Bistro, for example, would 

presumably be reluctant to keep its 80-seat restaurant open to 

serve a handful of customers if doing so meant forfeiting a 

potentially valuable tort claim. Encouraging businesses to close 

could thus catalyze the very economic stagnation we want to 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

29

minimize. Better instead to encourage businesses to continue 

their economic activity where they can.

D.

None of this is to say that denying recovery for those who 

did not suffer injury to person or property is a perfect solution 

in negligence cases like this one. Far from it. It is only the 

least-worst rule out there. 

Like other courts, we acknowledge that denying recovery 

for purely economic losses under circumstances like these has 

“the vice of creating results in cases at its edge that are . . . 

‘unjust’ or ‘unfair’ ” — or even “seemingly perverse.” (Testbank,

supra, 752 F.2d at p. 1029; see also 532 Madison, supra, 750 

N.E.2d at p. 1103 [acknowledging that this rule is “to an extent 

arbitrary because . . . invariably it cuts off liability to persons 

who foreseeably might be plaintiffs”].) The courthouse doors are 

open for people who experience slight physical injury — yet 

closed to others who suffer devastating purely economic losses. 

That line may appear arbitrary in some sense. Yet so are the 

alternatives we have considered and rejected — and those 

alternatives, as we’ve explained, have further flaws of their own. 

At any rate, “drawing arbitrary lines is unavoidable if we 

are to limit liability and establish meaningful rules for 

application by litigants and lower courts.” (Thing, supra, 48 

Cal.3d at p. 666.) And as we have explained, the ripple effects 

of industrial catastrophe on this scale in an interconnected 

economy defy judicial creation of more finely tuned rules. Hence 

the admittedly imperfect legal regime that governs in most 

jurisdictions — and that we now confirm governs in ours.

The Legislature, however, may be able to improve that 

regime in ways that would be exceptionally difficult, if not 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

30

impossible, for us. To name one example: after we rebuffed 

homeowners’ efforts to recover for purely economic losses 

stemming from construction defects in Aas, the Legislature 

responded to popular calls for a more forgiving rule in that 

context. (See Rosen, supra, 30 Cal.4th at p. 1079, citing Aas, 

supra, 24 Cal.4th at p. 646.) It enacted a detailed statutory 

mechanism specifically designed for homeowners seeking 

redress against negligent builders. (Rosen, at p. 1079, citing 

Civ. Code, § 895 et seq.) To name another: in view of “the 

economic and social disruptions arising out of the Lake Davis 

Northern Pike Eradication Project,” the Legislature set up a 

special process for people to recover for, among other things, 

purely economic losses suffered due to that environmental 

protection effort. (Gov. Code, §§ 998, 998.2.)

With the economic consequences in this case allegedly so 

severe, and the number of people affected allegedly so large, the 

Legislature could be spurred yet again to act. To be sure, purely 

economic losses caused by a natural gas leak may present their 

own set of challenges. But so too, we can only presume, of those 

caused by an oil spill. And in that context the Legislature has 

already interceded. It enacted legislation permitting those “who 

derive[] at least 25 percent” of their income from activities that 

utilize “natural resources” to recover — without regard to 

fault — for “[l]oss of profits or impairment of earning capacity 

due to the injury, destruction, or loss of . . . natural resources” 

from a spill.9 (Gov. Code, § 8670.56.5, subd. (h)(6).) Perhaps 

there’s a basis for further industry-specific legislative or 

regulatory action. And through the democratic process, the 

 

9 The United States Congress has passed similar 

legislation. (See 33 U.S.C. § 2702(b)(2)(E).)
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

31

Legislature can bring to bear a mix of expertise while 

considering competing concerns to craft a solution in tune with 

public demands. 

A partial solution leveraging the insurance market may

also prove feasible, at least for some businesses. Although many 

business interruption insurance policies presently available 

might not cover the purely economic losses alleged here (see 

Buxbaum v. Aetna Life & Casualty Co. (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 

434, 448-449), private insurance companies could conceivably 

see a profit-making opportunity in today’s decision. Now certain 

that a lawsuit seeking purely economic losses of this sort will 

not succeed, businesses operating near a natural gas storage 

facility — or a dam, shipping lane, oil well, and so forth — may 

be more inclined to buy insurance covering profits they stand to 

lose if disaster strikes. (See, e.g., Testbank, supra, 752 F.2d at 

p. 1029 [observing that a local business’s “own potential losses” 

in the event of an industrial accident “are finite and readily 

discernible,” which may enable them to obtain insurance “at a 

relatively low cost”].) If so, private insurance companies might 

expand their policy offerings accordingly.

Finally, we recognize Plaintiffs’ concern that SoCalGas’s

alleged negligent behavior will go insufficiently deterred if we 

deny recovery here. But SoCalGas is not getting off scot-free. 

At oral argument, the company represented that some 50,000 

claimants have alleged in other litigation that they suffered 

property damage caused by the leak — several hundred of whom 

are local businesses. It further informed us, and we have no 

reason to doubt, that the company has spent some $450 million 

on remedial measures and agreed to pay another $120 million 

as part of a settlement with local authorities. SoCalGas,

operating in a heavily regulated domain, also remains under 
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS LEAK CASES

Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J.

32

investigation –– and may face further consequences in the 

future.

III.

Risks from industrial accidents raise grave concerns for 

society, and we have no doubt the accident precipitating this 

case caused significant hardships. To compensate those harmed 

and to deter those who do the harming, our society assigns tort 

law a pivotal role. But that does not mean society’s interests are 

best served by extending its scope indefinitely. Meaningful 

limits on tort liability, along with the incentives they set, are 

crucial to the functioning of our economy and of our courts. 

Where such limits leave gaps in our social fabric, tort does not 

stand alone: insurance also compensates, regulation also 

deters. And where gaps persist, the Legislature can act.

The better part of a century has passed since then-Judge 

Cardozo warned that permitting recovery in negligence for 

purely economic losses can threaten indeterminacy-cubed: 

“liability in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time 

to an indeterminate class.” (Ultramares Corp. v. Touche

(N.Y. 1931) 174 N.E. 441, 444.) Courts across the country have 

since heeded that warning, by and large denying recovery in 

negligence cases like this one even though purely economic 

losses inflict real pain. That prevailing rule of no recovery is, 

like society itself, imperfect. Yet nearly everyone follows a rule 

that few (if any) entirely like. California does, too. So we affirm 

the Court of Appeal’s judgment.

CUÉLLAR, J.

We Concur:

CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J.

CHIN, J.

CORRIGAN, J.

LIU, J.

KRUGER, J.

GROBAN, J.
See last page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court.

Name of Opinion Southern California Gas Leak Cases

__________________________________________________________________________________

Unpublished Opinion

Original Appeal

Original Proceeding

Review Granted XXX 18 Cal.App.5th 581

Rehearing Granted

__________________________________________________________________________________

Opinion No. S246669

Date Filed: May 30, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________

Court: Superior

County: Los Angeles

Judge: John Shepard Wiley, Jr.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Counsel:

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, James J. Dragna, David L. Schrader, Yardena R. Zwang-Weissman; Quinn 

Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Kathleen M. Sullivan and Daniel H. Bromberg for Petitioner.

Horvitz & Levy, Jeremy B. Rosen, Eric S. Boorstin and Yen-Shyang Tseng for Chamber of Commerce of 

the United States, California Chamber of Commerce, American Insurance Association and Property 

Casualty Insurers Association of America as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner.

Hueston Hennigan, John C. Hueston, Moez M. Kaba and Douglas J. Dixon for Southern California Edison 

Company, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Southwest Gas Corporation, Edison Electric Institute and 

American Gas Association as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner.

Munger, Tolles & Olson, Henry Weissmann and Fred A. Rowley, Jr., for Plains All American Pipeline, 

L.P., the Association of Oil Pipe Lines and the Western States Petroleum Association as Amici Curiae on 

behalf of Petitioner.

Mark P. Gergen; Reed Smith and Raymond A. Cardozo for California Tort Law Scholars as Amicus Curiae 

on behalf of Petitioner.

Fred J. Hiestand for The Civil Justice Association of California as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner.

No appearance for Respondent.

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, Robert J. Nelson, Sarah R. London, Wilson M. Dunlavey; Public 

Justice, Leslie A. Brueckner; Kiesel Law, Paul R. Kiesel, Helen Zukin, Mariana Aroditis; Keller Rohrback, 

Ben Gould, Derek W. Loeser, Amy Williams-Derry; Boucher, Raymond P. Boucher, Shehnaz M. 

Bhujwala, Maria L. Weitz; The Kick Law Firm, Taras Kick; Baron & Budd, Roland Tellis; R. Rex Parris 

Law Firm, R. Rex Parris and Patricia Oliver for Real Parties in Interest.
Page 2 – S246669 – counsel continued

Counsel:

Sean B. Hecht, Julia E. Stein and Nathaniel Logar for California Tort Professors Richard Abel, Alison 

Anderson, Blake Emerson, Jill Horwitz, Kathleen Kim, Albert Lin, John Nockleby, Alex Wang, Jonathan 

Zasloff and Adam Zimmerman as Amici Curiae on behalf of Real Parties in Interest.

Nelson & Fraenkel, Gretchen M. Nelson and Gabriel S. Barenfeld for Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles 

as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Real Parties in Interest.

The Arkin Law Firm and Sharon J. Arkin for Consumer Attorneys of California as Amicus Curiae on 

behalf of Real Parties in Interest.

Boies Schiller Flexner, Christopher G. Caldwell, Michael R. Leslie, Andrew Esbenshade, Kelly L. Perigoe 

and David Boies for Toll Brothers, Inc., and Porter Ranch Development Company as Amici Curiae on 

behalf of Real Parties in Interest.
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion):

Kathleen M. Sullivan

Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

555 Twin Dolphin Drive, 5th Floor

Redwood Shores, CA 94065

(650) 801-5000

Leslie A. Brueckner

Public Justice

475 14th Street, Suite 610

Oakland, CA 94612

(510) 622-8150