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in the description. Authorities say that the
El Dorado forest fire that is currently burning
out of control in California was started at a gender reveal
party when a couple detonated a smoke generating pyrotechnic device to announce to the world that
their unborn baby was a son. The device ignited the
four foot tall grass of the El Dorado Ranch Park on a day when most of
California was being roasted by temperatures over a hundred degrees. So far thousands, if not millions of acres have burned allegedly, as a result of this gender reveal party. Hundreds of firefighters
are battling the blaze and thousands of people
have had to evacuate. So congratulations, it's a fire. And because we live in
the dumbest timeline, gender reveal parties
have actually sparked at least four disasters, including two forest fires, a plane crash and a person killed by what
was effectively a pipe bomb. Seriously, why do people do this? Why do they think it's a good idea? But this raises a
different legal question. Shouldn't the people whose
actions start wildfires be held responsible for the
damages to life and property? Well, the El Dorado blaze
was just one of several fires that continued to burn up
and down the West Coast as extreme heat created
hazardous conditions. And therein lies the
first of many problems in assigning blame and recouping costs. Here, allegedly, a couple started a fire, but how do you decide
if they have liability? And if so, when millions of acres burn, where does their liability end? And who normally pays for
damages caused by massive fires? And finally, if billion
dollar fires are more common because of climate change how will the law rise
to meet this challenge? Hey, Legal Eagles, It's
time to think like a lawyer because we didn't start the fire, it was always burning since
the world's been turning. But thanks to climate change it's burning a whole lot more often. And in that situation
who pays for the damages caused by these massive, massive wildfires that are currently burning
California and Oregon? And in general, there are
probably three main sources that are likely to provide compensation in a situation like
this with forest fires. One is insurance companies, though that's increasingly
becoming less likely to pay for circumstances like these. Two is the federal government. In other words, taxpayers
are likely to pick up the bag when insurance companies refuse to. And then third, of
course, are other people, people that are responsible for the fires or people that contribute to the fires and potentially people who
contribute to global warming. Well fires are as old
as civilization itself. And as a result we've developed
a number of legal tools to help deal with the
liability that's caused from those conflagrations. And if you know your American history, you might recall that Mrs
O'Leary and her cow were blamed for the great Chicago fire of 1871, which killed 120 people, consumed over three square
miles of the city center and caused $200 million in
damages in today's money. Eventually historians concluded that she was the victim of
anti-immigration sentiment and the city formally
exonerated her in 1997. But similarly, in 2017, Rita
Yeboah, a Ghanian immigrant, was blamed for the deadly
Bronx apartment fire that killed 13 people. Her three year old son
was playing with the oven when it caught fire and
Yeboah was chastised by local authorities for
not attending to her son and failing to close the door. These two stories have more in common than just anti-immigration sentiment. There's no doubt that this
Chicago fire was started in Mrs. O'Leary's barn just
like there was no question that the deadly Bronx fire was started in Yeboah's apartment, but Mrs. O'Leary disputed the idea that she had negligently milked a cow which allegedly kicked over a
lantern and started the blaze. And similarly, Yeboah fought
back by suing her landlord for permitting dangerous conditions in the apartment building which may have had doors
that wouldn't stay closed. Although both women social stigma, neither of them had to pay
the damages to property or the cost of fire suppression. And that's because in America, fires that weren't
intentionally set by arsonists have historically been
treated as, well, accidents. However, in 2020, massive wildfires are
frighteningly commonplace and they're taxing our traditional methods of paying for them. And we'll get to the personal liability that stems from causing fires, as in what happens when you
get sued for causing a fire in just a second. But let's start with
the more traditional way that people get
compensation for accidents, especially when it comes
to homes and fires, which is the insurance industry. And for those who are
uninsured or underinsured, FEMA offers individual and
household disaster assistance that can help pay for damages
to homes and businesses. Generally, we're talking about
standard homeowners policies the insurance policy that everyone needs when you buy our own house. Which generally covers
destruction and damage caused by a fire, which
generally includes wildfires. In the event of a fire, the insurance company will
pay to rebuild or repair an insured home and
remediate smoke damage. This includes the
outbuildings on the property such as a garage or a tool shed. Some insurance policies
cover theft or vandalism that happens in the event of looting in the wake of a wildfire. Businesses tend to have their own policies which cover fire damage to the building, office space and equipment and inventory. And of course, insurance
is an important piece of the fire cost puzzle,
but there are limits. In this case, literally. Because the amount of the insurance payout is determined by the terms and
limits of the policy itself. Generally, homeowners
policies don't cover limits beyond one to $2 million unless the homeowner has
paid for more coverage. And every policy carries exclusions that prevent the insurance
company from having a payout, if the situation falls
under one of those scenarios covered by the exclusion. And whenever you have this
much property destruction at exactly the same time, the insurance industry is notorious for doing whatever it
can to avoid paying out. As one of my former law
partners used to say, the only thing an insurance
policy is good for is getting the right to
sue your insurance company. Already, these wildfires
in Oregon and California are causing huge losses
in the insurance industry. And a few years ago, back in 2018, the campfire fire was
the costliest wildfire in California history, causing more than 14,000
structures to be destroyed. And the insurance industry had
losses of over $14 billion. The scale of those losses, in other words the insurance
companies had to pay out billions of dollars to the people that bought insurance from them, prompted reinsurance
companies to step back. Now re-insurance is insurance purchased by insurance companies that are offloading some
of the financial risks of a major catastrophe. The availability of re-insurance enables better known primary carers, such as farmers and state farm to keep writing coverage in areas that are most likely to
experience wildfires. Now, while primary insurance companies generally face tons of
regulations that prevent them from raising prices for high risk areas, reinsurance companies generally are not subject to rate regulation by the California Department of Insurance. As a result, re-insurance
rates are skyrocketing by as much as 70%. So since insurers can't raise
homeowners insurance rates because of state regulations
to match the actual price of the things that
they're having to pay out because of the wildfires, generally because of state regulations, insurance companies have
reduced the number of policies that they underwrite. And some people living in rural California now have properties that
are effectively uninsurable. So, while many homeowners
in affected areas may be able to get an
insurance payout this year, effectively the insurance companies may leave the area entirely
because it's too risky. And the housing markets
in these areas may tank because no one's going to
buy an uninsured house, especially in an area that's
going to be facing wildfires year after year. People love to dunk on insurance
companies, myself included, but if it becomes too costly
to provide that insurance, the insurance company will just simply leave the market entirely. But with insurance companies
increasingly refusing to provide coverage for
these kinds of areas, that might mean that
the federal government, in other words taxpayers, are going to have to pick up the bill. And when it comes to the
cost of finding the fires the federal government
has stepped in to cover some of those costs. The Trump administration issued
a major disaster declaration for California wildfires,
which opened up the gates for federal funding to be
funneled into recovery efforts. Funding through the
declarations covers up to 75% of the costs incurred by
California for removing debris, conducting emergency activities, providing transitional sheltering and presumably raking the forest as the president has told
us that we should be doing. - I was with the president
of Finland and he said: "We have a much different.
We're a forest nation." He called it a forest nation. And they spent a lot of
time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they
don't have any problem. And what it is, it's a very small problem. We've gotta take care
of the floors, you know? The floors of the forest, very important. - And federal funding is also available on a cost sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide. Now the federal government
has spent about $1.58 billion on fire suppression in 2019. And this is more than triple
the amount allocated in 2018. Unfortunately, some of the
money that was allocated to fight fires was shifted from
fire prevention activities. And the West coast fires
are often politicized in a really ugly way. Now there is a source of
quasi governmental entities that might provide compensation and that would be the utility companies. Now, most experts say that
extreme weather conditions that lead to fires are
caused by climate change. But the laws that we have on the books just haven't caught up with the scale of these massive fires. This is a big problem for
state and local governments, which are left footing bill for the cost of fire
suppression and cleanup. And sometimes there's
an easy, wealthy target for the state to go after. For example, California's
department of forestry and fire protection determined
that 12 devastated fires that struck Northern California in 2017 were the result of trees coming
in contact with power lines or other failures by the
utility company, PG&E. And thanks to a policy known
as inverse condemnation, the utility has to pay those damages which the company believes
will be over $10 billion. And even if the company is
found to be not negligent. Inverse condemnation is a legal doctrine that holds utility companies, like PG&E, Pacific Gas and Electric to a strict liability standard. Under strict liability, it doesn't matter if fire starts
by accident or negligence. If it happens on the company's equipment then the utility is
responsible for those damages. The California court decisions
in the 1960s and seventies allowed the state to
use inverse condemnation to hold utilities liable. For many years, the utility companies
could just handle the costs by increasing the rates
charged to consumers. But in 2017, the California
Public Utilities Commission turned down requests by
SDG&E for $379 million in cost reimbursements
for the 2007 wildfires sparked by their lines. Now power companies may be
on the hook for actual costs without electricity hikes. And how they're going to
do that is anyone's guess. PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection. It argued that the disallowance
amounted to a violation of the Takings Clause
of the Fifth Amendment of the United States constitution and the California constitution. Legal theory is that even
though the state did not take any PG&E property, applying
inverse condemnation to the company effectively
transfers the company to the state without just compensation or any compensation at all. And the company argued
that if it was allowed to pass the costs to consumers
through increased utility rates, inverse condemnation would
be costly institutional. But a federal bankruptcy
court rejected this argument and the case is on appeal in front of the California Supreme court. Which takes us to the next
it's a group of people who are likely to face some liability. And that is of course, the
tort liability of individuals. A tort is a wrong committed by a person that ends up causing harm to
someone or something else. The tort at stake in wildfire cases is most likely negligence. And Black's Law Dictionary
defines negligence as the failure to exercise
the standard of care that a reasonably prudent
person would have exercised in a similar situation. And there are four elements
in a negligence claim. Duty, a breach of that
duty, injury and causation. The two elements that I want to highlight in a wildfire negligence case is the duty of care and causation, because damages are pretty obvious here. Now the duty of care is based
on what a reasonable person in the same or similar
circumstance would do. It's an objective test based
on what a reasonable person would have done in the same
or similar circumstances. The circumstances of the El
Dorado gender reveal party help us to define whether a person acted reasonably or negligently. Did the people detonate
explosives in their backyard, near a pool or were they in an area with high flammable dry foliage? What was the weather like? Was it hot and dry or cool and rainy? Had local authorities warned people that conditions were dangerous and could potentially lead to fire? The facts determined whether
people acted reasonably or like idiots. I mean, acted reasonably. And as I've said before, if
you ask a lawyer anything, the answer is almost always, it depends. And I try not to take
a stand on most things, but I will go out on a limb and say that if you are detonating a bomb in front of a bunch of dry
grass on a hundred degree day, that's probably negligence. But that takes us to the
second element of negligence that's at play here. And that's causation. Now, there are two types
of negligent causation, there's actual cause and proximate cause. And actual cause is sometimes
referred to as cause-in-fact. It means that but for the negligent act or the omission by the defendant, the plaintiff would not have been harmed. This is known as the but for test. For example, if a couple detonates a bomb in front of a bunch of dry grass on an incredibly hot dry day,
and that grass catches fire and sets their neighbor's house on fire, then it's clear that the
but for test is made. But for the bomb going off and
the fire consuming the house, the house wouldn't have been damaged. But the second type of negligent causation is called proximate cause. And approximate cause requires
that the natural direct and uninterrupted consequence
of a negligent act or omission causes the plaintiff's injury. For example, the El
Dorado couple's actions did start a huge fire but
where does their liability end? What if once the fire had started, Joe Rogan, seeing the fire spreading, decided that he wanted
to create a copycat fire and blame liberal activists
for setting fires? I'm a little salty because Joe Rogan is
blaming liberal activists for the fires, which is insane. - I said something on the
podcast with Douglas Murray about people getting
arrested for lighting fires. You know, air quote,
activists. And I got duped. - Obviously, the El
Dorado couple's actions are a but for cause. Seeing the fires led Joe
Rogan to start a copycat fire. But it's hard to say that their actions were the proximate
cause of the second fire spreading and causing damage. And extending this
hypothetical even further, what happens if the first fire
and the second fire combined to form a super fire and
then damage other property? Who's then responsible
for the damages caused by the combined fire? It's hard to say, that's the problem of proving proximate cause. But back to the real world, I think a jury could be persuaded that the El Dorado
couple acted negligently and caused property damages. But collecting many billions
of dollars from that couple would be a daunting,
if not impossible task, they're not Jeff Basos. But just because someone
might be judgment proof and can't afford the billions
of dollars of property damage doesn't mean that they're
going to escape all penalties. And there are other options
for local government. With fires on the rise in the West, local and state governments have started going after people for starting fires. In Oregon, for example,
two men were billed for starting a fire
that burned 26,000 acres over the course of a month. And the men were billed
for $37 million in damages. They both did used lawn
mowers to mow grass during the daytime, which
was prohibited at the time because the conditions were so hot and dry that they could cause
a fire, which they did. But under Oregon law, the
men could only be fined in accordance with civil penalties. They were each find $550 each for a fire that cost it's a state at least $37 million to suppress. But California law
provides an additional way to penalize reckless property owners. For example, in 2016,
the U.S. Forest Service sued a California property owner seeking almost $25 million in compensation for the fire that burned
15,000 acres of federal lands in San Bernardino National Forest. Investigators determined
that the fire ignited in a plastic electrical junction box that wasn't properly sealed. An electrical discharge inside
the book box shots sparks onto dry ground vegetation,
which sparked a mountain fire. The theories of liability
included negligence, trespass by fire and
violations of California's Health and Safety Code Section 13001, which allows the state to pass
the cost of fire suppression to any person who
negligently sparks a fire. Obviously the plaintiff is
unlikely to get $25 million but the suit allows the
government to negotiate with an insurance company,
provided the property was insured and sends a message that
they hope will deter others from similar conduct. Of course, if the civil fines
and lawsuits aren't enough a person can be prosecuted
criminally as well. A person can be prosecuted for reckless or extremely
negligent conduct. The kind of thing that we would
normally call an accident. Under California Penal Code Section 452, it's a crime for a person
to recklessly set a fire or burn any structure,
forest, land, or property. California Penal Code Section 452 makes it a crime for a person
to recklessly set a fire or to burn any structure,
forest, land or property. A person acts recklessly
if the person is aware that their actions could present a substantial and unjustifiable
risk of causing a fire. The person ignores that risk and ignoring the risk is a gross deviation from how a reasonable person would act in the same situation. A reckless action is a higher standard than mistakes or even negligence. Negligent acts include things, like forgetting to turn
off the burner on a stove. This alone won't subject someone to a reckless burning charge. However, acting with complete
disregard for safety may. So for example, if you were
here or trying to heat up a can of gasoline on the stove, that might qualify as recklessness. You didn't intend for a fire to start, but you should know that if
you're heating up gasoline on a stove on an open flame,
a fire may result from that. And basic reckless burning
of personal property under Penal Code Section
452 is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty
of six months in jail and a fine up to a thousand dollars. But if the reckless burning results in a burned structure or forest land, or if it causes great bodily injury then the crime may be prosecuted as either a misdemeanor or a felony. And that's what happened to William Rupp who served two years in
prison recklessly causing the Lake Shasta fire in 2008. The 56-year-old was accused of intentionally ignoring in warnings of a potential fire hazard
by cutting the grass on his rural property
on an extremely dry day when temperatures were about 106 degrees. A mower blade struck a rock,
sparked and ignited the fire which burned 86 rural
homes at around 1:30 p.m. Prosecutors said Rupp
ignored warnings not to mow from neighbors and public
service spots on TV and told one person who
questioned him to go to hell. And a similar situation
happened in Arizona when an off duty border patrol agent was ordered to pay $220,000 in restitution after he started at 47,000 acre wildfire at a gender reveal party. Again with the frigging
gender reveal parties. In that case, Dennis Dickey pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of
causing a fire without a permit after he caused the April,
2017 sawmill fire in Arizona. Dickey reportedly shot a
target containing tannerite, which is an explosive substance designed to detonate when shot
by a high velocity firearm. And colored powder that would
reveal the baby's gender at the party. Tannerite has reportedly
been linked to past wildfires and featured prominently in Tiger King. - Are you ready for
this? (mimics gunshots) (gunshots firing) Oh, hell! - Dickey of course claimed
it was a complete accident and that he immediately
contacted authorities. And that's probably true, but the problem with claiming that it's a complete accident is that there were 40 mile an hour winds that day in the desert in an area that had already experienced
a drought conditions. And you would think that a
reasonable person would know that a high explosive in dry grass with fast winds is likely
to cause a really big fire. But if you're throwing
a gender reveal party with explosives, then
you're probably an idiot and you need to spend some time learning how to not be an idiot. And the best place to learn
anything is Skillshare. And one of the best classes
is Thomas Frank's class on real productivity, How
to Build Habits that Last. And I'll bet one of the
keys to productivity is not throwing a stupid
gender reveal party. But let me ask him. Hey, Thomas? - Stop throwing gender reveal parties. And just a thought, maybe, stop starting fires too. - Yup. Thomas is a smart guy. And his short one hour class on Skillshare will help you stick to your habits even after the initial
novelty period wears off. He focuses on strengthening
your internal self discipline, assisting that self discipline
with smart, external systems that keep you on track and
improving those habits over time with regular reflection. Over 45,000 people have already taken Thomas Frank's class on Skillshare and not one of them has
started a forest fire. Skillshare, as you know, is
an online learning community that has tens of thousands
of classes on everything. Like illustration, creative
writing, music and productivity. The first 1000 Legal Eagles
will get two free months of Skillshare premium
when you click on the link in the description. Plus after that trial ends, Skillshare is way more affordable than most online learning platforms with plans starting at
less than $10 per month. Plus clicking on that
link in the description really helps out this channel and it's way cheaper
than paying $37 million for damage from a forest fire. So just click on the link below and get two free months of Skillshare. So do you agree with my analysis? Should we jail all people that
throw gender reveal parties or just those that start forest fires? Leave your objections in the comments and check out this playlist over here with all of my other real law reviews, where I talk about all of the things that are in the legal news, from the Trump administration to COVID, you name it, it's all here. So click on this playlist
and I'll see you in court.
The answer is nobody.
Why does every ducking YouTube thumbnail look the same now??
Vague background, Black or white letters, Weird facial expression
Wouldn’t logging help avoid fires? Or at least the severity of the latest fires.