PG&E trial on San Bruno explosion set for July

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

A San Mateo County judge ruled Thursday that a group of lawsuits against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. over the San Bruno natural gas explosion will go to trial next year and serve as a model for resolving dozens of others filed by plaintiffs who were injured or lost homes, possessions or loved ones.

Judge Steven Dylina of San Mateo County Superior Court ruled that suits lodged by a total of 16 plaintiffs will be heard in a single trial in July. The outcome of that "representative sampling" will be a blueprint for about 90 other lawsuits filed by victims or victims' relatives over the Sept. 9, 2010, pipeline explosion that killed eight people in the Crestmoor neighborhood, destroyed 38 homes and damaged 70 more.

PG&E's lawyers wanted all the lawsuits heard at once, which the judge said would be "profoundly against the law" and could result in delays of up to a year or more. He said case law dictates that a single jury hear all aspects of a legal matter, but that PG&E wanted separate juries to consider liability and then compensatory damages.

Granting a mass trial, Dylina said, would be "in effect, a Star Trek ruling - to go where no court has gone before."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/23/BA9V1L87RV.DTL

[truedelphi]

1. It was bad enough that PG & E scalped the users money-wise, by

Being in bed with Enron, but then they took five million bucks to redo a section of pipeline in San Bruno, instead used the money for something else, let dozens of homes inside a community explode and go up in flames, and this ended up killing people, and now they have the advantage of having all those Corporate lawyers.

Ain't life in a "democracy" grand.

[Supply Side Jesus]

2. If Corpoations are people

then I am sure we can execute these assholes already. De-corporate and sell the assets off!