Kiesel is a busy lawyer, what with his presidency at the Los Angeles County Bar Association, a full docket of cases including litigation over the 2008 Metrolink train crash, and the mega-case that mushroomed out of the Porter Ranch gas leak that began in Aliso Canyon last October. "Porter Ranch is overwhelming everything else I do," said Kiesel, who has been appointed interim liaison counsel for the private plaintiffs in a case so far involves 151 separate lawsuits, 81 separate plaintiffs' firms and the recent entrance for the plaintiffs of California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris and several public entities.
All are suing Southern California Gas Co. and the California Department of Conservation's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources over the leak that for months released huge amounts of methane and mercaptan odorants, allegedly endangering public health. Southern California Gas Leak Cases, JCCP 4861 (L.A. Super. Ct., coordinated Jan. 12, 2016) It was unclear how Harris' appearance on the plaintiffs' side will fit with her potential duty to defend the state oil and gas agency.
"I'm trying to herd these cats," Kiesel said. Superior Court Judge John S. Wiley Jr., who is overseeing the colossal case, appointed Kiesel to the steering committees for the public and private plaintiffs. "Each committee has six firms, so I'm the tiebreaker." Kiesel said he's working on the case "close to 20 hours a day," drafting a master complaint. "We're just getting off the ground," he said. "We had 2,500 residents relocated. The county health department said that Southern California Gas must clean their homes before they return, decontaminate the houses. That gets us into vendor issues. This is going to be massive, massive litigation. This blowout lasted 25 days longer than the BP oil spill."
He added that issues emerging include those of disclosure by the gas company. "The homeowners at Porter Ranch were mostly unaware they purchased a home next to 115 wells holding 84 billion cubic feet of gas," Kiesel said. "There was no uniform disclosure about the threat to their lovely backyard hillsides."
Despite the chaos of preparing the Porter Ranch case, Kiesel said he's still enjoying his job. "I always have time to have fun," he said. "That's an important part of life." One casualty of his long hours, however, was that he had to abandon vacation travel plans. "No trip this year," he said. "I have been L.A.-bound."
- John Roemer
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