Unanimous California Supreme Court agrees to decide PG&E negligence question

June 1, 2022 – The California Supreme Court today voted 6-0 (with Justice Kruger abstaining) to accept the firm’s case (Gantner v. PG&E) for review. The case arose after firm client Anthony Gantner sued PG&E on behalf of hundreds of thousands of PG&E customers in Northern California harmed by PG&E’s “public safety power shut-offs” (or PSPSs) in the fall of 2019. Gantner alleged that the PSPSs were the result of PG&E’s well-documented criminal negligence, over many years, in maintaining its power grid, which forced it to choose between shutting the power off or letting the fires burn.

In the Ninth Circuit, PG&E argued that because PSPSs are generally permitted by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), PG&E is immune from liability for its negligence because liability would “hinder or frustrate” the CPUC’s regulatory authority over PG&E. Plaintiff’s position, however, supported by amicus Alice Stebbins, former Executive Director of the CPUC, is that there is no such interference since the lawsuit does not challenge PG&E’s right to implement PSPSs or the manner in which they implement them—instead, the case is about why PG&E was forced to implement them in the first place.

PG&E’s other defense is that a tariff rule (special rules that apply to public utilities) gives it blanket immunity from damages caused by the interruption of services. But Plaintiff counters that that same tariff rule provides that the immunity does not apply where the interruption of service was due to its own “failure to exercise reasonable diligence.”  At Plaintiff’s urging, the Ninth Circuit recognized that the case presented novel issues of law with important public policy ramifications for millions of Californians and asked the California Supreme Court to decide whether PG&E is immune from damages caused by its negligence. Mr. Gantner and the putative class are represented by firm lawyers Nicholas Carlin, Brian Conlon, and Kyle O’Malley. For oral argument before the Ninth Circuit, see here.