More than a dozen wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against the city of Los Angeles as still grieving families race to meet a year-end deadline allowing them to recover damages for their loved ones’ pain and suffering in the deadly Palisades fire.
Lawsuits against the state and the city were reportedly filed during the final weeks of 2025 before the Dec. 31 expiration of a California law that permitted families to seek compensation for what was endured by victims before their deaths.
The hardest-hit residents are targeting both the city and state with legal action over what they call a “complete failure by the government on multiple levels.” the NY Post reports.
Some 16 wrongful death lawsuits were submitted in the last few weeks of December alone as local residents still mourn for the lost and look ahead to rebuilding their lives in the place they know and love.
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A coalition of law firms is working on behalf of the victims, alleging not only did the state and city mishandle the situation, but the deadly Palisades fire could have been prevented.
Attorney Roger Behle, whose firm is representing a handful of the cases, told the Post what happens next as a litany of state and local failures continue to be exposed:
It’s a complete failure by the government on multiple levels.
The fire shouldn’t have started in the first place. That should have been something the state prevented. But once it starts, that’s where the city in its infrastructure steps in and says, all right, well, let’s at least give the firefight some water.
Behle alleged “a lot more” evidence has been uncovered to highlight the state’s failures as landowners and not doing its due diligence to ensure the hotspots from the Lachman fire were completely extinguished — days later, that blaze reignited into the Palisades fire, according to the Post report.
“The state really had an obligation to be up there on its own property and accordance with its own protocol, inspecting its land, you know, closing the park down to make sure there were no hotspots or any of the public safety issue and they just didn’t do anything,” Behle confirmed to the outlet.
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“They were up there for a few minutes and left and turned around, and that’s really what’s become most shocking.”
The wrongful death complaints were filed as short-form documents in the consolidated Palisades Fire Litigation and include circumstances of each victim’s death and photographs of the deceased.
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