Kevin Boyle sues LA over Palisades Fire that destroyed law office

Attorney Kevin R. Boyle, whose law firm office was destroyed in the January wildfires, has sued the city of Los Angeles, claiming that there was too much energy in the Department of Water and Power's electricity lines during the heavy winds that blew through the Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, and not enough water in its infrastructure to put out the fire.

Boyle's complaint, filed also on behalf of 18 other plaintiffs, appears to be the first to claim that the LA utility's energy infrastructure caused the fire. Lawsuits against Southern California Edison have blamed power lines for the Eaton Fire in Altadena.

"We have been doing deep investigations since the day of the fire," Boyle said in a telephone interview Monday. "LADWP knows what it did. And I know what LADWP did. And they know that I know."

His office in the 15,400 block on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades was burned down. He said most of his clients' files were stored electronically in the cloud, so that data was preserved. The biggest thing that he lost in the fire was his deceased father's archives. Richard Edward Boyle was a defense attorney in Illinois and Missouri.

"He did work for tobacco companies. I had some of that evidence. All of that went up in smoke," Boyle said.

The lawsuit states, "Defendants' operation of its power supply and related infrastructure, which includes power poles, transmission lines, transformers, conductors, and other equipment, in particular but not limited to, all power equipment to and a part of the circuit associated with Distributing Station 99 at 1433 Monte Grande Place in Pacific Palisades, were a substantial cause of Plaintiffs' damages. The power supply and related infrastructure constitute a public improvement for a public use." Boyle Law PC v. City of Los Angeles, Acting by and Through the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 25STCV08248 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed March 202, 2025).

Boyle's complaint resembles in some respects the handful of lawsuits that have been filed over the Palisades Fire in claiming inverse condemnation and points squarely at an empty water reservoir and fire hydrants that ran dry on the night of the fire.

There have been significantly fewer lawsuits seeking damages from the Palisades Fire compared to the Eaton Fire in Altadena, primarily because evidence linking utility equipment to the blaze was not immediately obvious, attorneys said. But the city's decision to retain Munger Tolles & Olson LLP to defend the utility in lawsuits stemming from the Palisades Fire is a sign that the utility is preparing for a high-stakes legal struggle.

"The amount at stake in the Palisades fire is, at least, well into the tens of billions of dollars - probably hundreds of billions of dollars," Alexander R. Wheeler of the Parris Law Firm in Lancaster said in a phone call in February. "The dollar value of the real estate destroyed in that fire is enough to bankrupt the city, right? So, if I were the city, I would pick the best law firm that I could hire, and I think they've done that."

Munger Tolles chair and national trial lawyer Brad D. Brian in Los Angeles represents the city and utility in at least one case related to the Palisades Fire, along with firm partners Daniel B. Levin in Los Angeles and Nicholas D. Fram in San Francisco, according to court documents filed Feb. 7. Grigsby et al. v. City of Los Angeles, Acting by and Through the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 25STCV00832 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Jan. 13, 2025).

Attorneys representing Palisades Fire victims in these claims are focusing their efforts on testimony from firefighters and evidence from municipal officials, highlighting a critical issue: the lack of water to extinguish fires. But Boyle's complaint hints that his colleagues in the plaintiffs' bar will soon be focusing on the powerlines overhead as well.