Lawyer challenges leadership system in consolidated cases

Continuing a months-long battle against the court-appointed plaintiffs’ leadership in two Southern California fire litigations, a San Diego lawyer has taken his fight to the court of appeal, arguing the leadership system creates serious conflicts of interest and infringes upon his clients’ fundamental rights.

Gerald B. Singleton of Singleton Law Firm has been a vocal opponent of the appointed leadership in both the Thomas and Woolsey fire cases, which are consolidated and coordinated in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Singleton argues the system is unnecessary and gives authority to one group, which has delayed discovery and the setting of trial dates.

He’s raised numerous objections in briefings, hearings and lost fights before Judges Daniel J. Buckley and William F. Highberger, who are overseeing the Thomas and Woolsey fires, respectively.

Southern California Edison Co., whose equipment has been accused of sparking both blazes, is facing thousands of claims for inverse condemnation, public nuisance and negligence.

The Woolsey Fire, believed to have sparked at a Rocketdyne facility in Simi Valley in November 2018, burned more than 96,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Woolsey Fire cases, JCCP 5000.

The Thomas Fire sparked Dec. 4, 2017 and burned more than 280,000 acres across Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Southern California Fires, JCCP 4965.

Leadership counsel consisting of Brian J. Panish, partner at Panish Shea & Boyle LLP; Lexi J. Hazam, partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP; and Alexander Robertson IV of Robertson & Associates LLP have primarily led and steered matters in both coordinated fire cases on behalf of all individual plaintiffs.

The system gives the same group of lawyers “vast control of all plaintiffs’ cases in this Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding and prevents non-lead counsel with cases from representing their own clients as they deem to be in their clients’ best interests,” Singleton argued in his appellate petition.

Furthermore, the system creates serious conflict of interest due to a financial incentive established in the form of potential fee awards under the common benefit doctrine, Singleton wrote.

“Mr. Singleton has taken a very similar writ before in the Thomas case which was denied by the court of appeal, and we expect this to be similarly denied,” Hazam said Tuesday when reached for comment.