Lawsuit: PG&E lied to cover up negligence in explosion

The massive explosion happened nearly seven years ago, but many Bakersfield residents will never forget the towers of flame that rose hundreds of feet into the air near Wible and Houghton roads that November day in 2015.

They were visible from downtown Bakersfield.

Fire surging from a ruptured 36-inch, high-pressure natural gas pipeline owned by PG&E left one man dead, two women seriously burned, at least three vehicles gutted and a newly built dream home completely destroyed.

But there was another kind of damage done in the wake of the incident, said Rex Parris, one of two attorneys representing Jeff Alexander, the owner of the company whose plow struck the pipeline that day, sparking the inferno.

That damage was caused by PG&E, he said, and making it right will require the utility to pay an award worth more than $1.2 billion.

Reached Monday, the utility did not comment on the lawsuit.

But PG&E did comment less than a month after the 2015 incident, in the news release announcing it sued Alexander and his company.

“We cannot and will not ignore any excavator that breaks the law and doesn’t put the safety of the community first,” said Jesus Soto Jr., then-PG&E’s senior vice president of gas operations.

“Unsafe excavation is one of the leading causes of pipeline incidents and are completely preventable,” Soto said.

The utility also released a timeline of four events in 2014 and 2015 purporting to show that Big N Deep was skirting the law, including doing work without waiting the required amount of time after it was issued an 811 ticket needed to authorize digging projects.

Parris said evidence will show that Big N Deep worked within the requirements of the law.

“This is a second-generation farming family in Kern County,” Parris said Monday. “One day they were well respected in the farming community. The next day people were wondering if they were guilty of manslaughter.”

It was no accident, Parris said of PG&E’s strategy to go after Alexander. After PG&E was found by regulators to have falsified gas pipeline records for years, it wasn’t surprising the utility giant immediately went on the offensive following the gas explosion, Parris said. But Alexander’s reputation was left in tatters as a result.

Lancaster-based Parris, who also serves as the mayor of that city, and his co-counsel, longtime Bakersfield attorney Ralph Wegis, are scheduled to begin jury selection in a defamation trial against PG&E on Tuesday morning in Kern County Superior Court.

The complaint contends that PG&E was not only responsible for the Nov. 13, 2015, incident, but that the utility knew it was responsible and knowingly published and distributed a press release with false information.

According to the complaint, Big N Deep Agricultural Development and its owner Jeff Alexander began deep plowing only after PG&E cleared the field for the work by marking its gas lines — although the complaint contends even that was done improperly.

The complaint also alleges PG&E caused substantial financial damage to Alexander and his business by sending a flawed press release to area news organizations.

“The press release characterizes Alexander as a habitual violator with ‘complete disregard for the law’; who conducts illegal and dangerous excavations resulting in one fatality and a number of serious injuries,” the complaint stated.

The complaint contends that PG&E accused Alexander of repeatedly failing to call 811 before digging, which is required by law. In the Dec. 15, 2015, news release, the utility announced it had filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order and permanent injunctions against Alexander and his company.

“The press release is demonstrably false,” Alexander’s attorneys argue in the complaint. “Jeffrey Alexander called 811 before digging in every instance.”

Because of the utility’s fabrications, his client suffered significant losses in earnings, Parris told The Californian. He’s also asking for $84 million in damages for the loss of his client’s reputation in the Kern County agricultural community.

And punitive damages? Parris said he shooting for $1.2 billion. Any lesser amount, he said, will not punish a company the size of PG&E.