{"id":3820,"date":"2025-01-22T16:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T16:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/la-judge-orders-edison-to-preserve-wildfire-evidence-is-kline-specter-fight-with-thomas-bosworth-finally-over\/"},"modified":"2025-01-22T16:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T16:33:10","slug":"la-judge-orders-edison-to-preserve-wildfire-evidence-is-kline-specter-fight-with-thomas-bosworth-finally-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/la-judge-orders-edison-to-preserve-wildfire-evidence-is-kline-specter-fight-with-thomas-bosworth-finally-over\/","title":{"rendered":"LA Judge Orders Edison to Preserve Wildfire Evidence, Is Kline & Specter Fight With Thomas Bosworth Finally Over?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Welcome to\u00a0Law.com Class Actions: Critical Mass<\/b>, a weekly briefing for class action and mass tort attorneys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This week<\/b>:\u00a0A Los Angeles judge on Tuesday ordered Southern California Edison<\/b> to preserve evidence related to this month\u2019s Eaton fire. Kline & Specter<\/b> and Thomas Bosworth<\/b> may have finally settled their differences. Find out who is representing Microsoft<\/b> and Safariland<\/b> in antitrust lawsuits relating to body cams.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Brittani Jackson, counsel at Hueston Hennigan. Courtesy photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018Either Edison, Or It\u2019s a Cause We\u2019ve Never Seen Before\u2019<\/h2>\n

A Los Angeles judge ordered Southern California Edison<\/b> to preserve evidence relating to the Eaton fire, one of the massive wildfires that charred through Los Angeles this month, destroying more than 7,000 structures and killing 17 people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s my report<\/a> on Tuesday\u2019s order, which granted a motion brought by Ali Moghaddas<\/a> (Edelson<\/b>) in one of the 20 lawsuits so far blaming Edison\u2019s negligence on the Eaton fire. Attorneys insisted in the motion that Edison\u2019s counsel at Hueston & Hennigan<\/b> planned to destroy evidence, following a similar playbook the firm did for PacifiCorp<\/b> in litigation over Oregon wildfires in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael Behrens<\/a> (Hueston Hennigan<\/b>), however, insisted in a letter to Moghaddas that Edison was preserving electrical infrastructure near the origin of the fire but called Edelson\u2019s discovery requests \u201coverbroad and unduly burdensome.\u201d Partners Douglas Dixon <\/a>and Brittani Jackson<\/a> appeared for Tuesday\u2019s hearing on behalf of Edison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Meanwhile, Ben Crump<\/a> (Ben Crump Law<\/b>) filed the first wrongful death action<\/a> on behalf of family members of a resident of Altadena, which has a large Black population. Another firm, Singleton Schreiber<\/b>, filed a suit in partnership with the NAACP.<\/b> On Tuesday, Jerry Singleton<\/a> (Singleton Schreiber<\/b>) hosted a virtual town hall about the Eaton fire. He insisted that his firm\u2019s retired arson investigators found no evidence of a homeless encampment or fireworks but did find marks on the transmission towers \u201cconsistent with that arcing from the lines down to the ground.\u201d He remarked:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhere investigators are now is it\u2019s either Edison, or it\u2019s a cause we\u2019ve never seen before.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thomas Bosworth of Bosworth Law. Courtesy photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Kline & Specter Fight With Ex-Associate Over, For Now<\/h2>\n

Kline & Specter<\/b> and its ex-associate, Thomas Bosworth<\/a> (Bosworth Law)<\/b>, may have finally resolved their two-year dispute.<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s according to ALM<\/b>\u2019s Aleeza Furman<\/b>, who wrote this report,<\/a> complete with a nice chart outlining the lengthy fight, which said both sides reached a stipulation following months of accusing one another of violating the terms of their 2024 settlement. Under the settlement, Bosworth had agreed to take down his TikTok<\/b> posts criticizing Kline & Specter, while Kline & Specter was ordered to pay Bosworth nearly $100,000 in attorney fees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Both sides were set to argue the alleged settlement breaches on Jan. 15, but, one day before the hearing, they resolved their disputes. Under the stipulation, Bosworth must pay Kline & Specter more than $550,000 in costs on a case he took with him and acknowledge he already received the nearly $100,000 fee award. Kline & Specter, in return, agreed to drop its remaining lawsuit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That might not end the fights, however. Another former associate, Terrance DeAngelo<\/b>, now a partner at Bosworth\u2019s firm, accused Kline & Specter of threatening attorneys who try to leave the firm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s how Aleeza described the status of the dispute:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe stipulation should, in theory, mean everyone is playing along with the settlement, which was supposed to have resolved this whole dispute several months ago. With the settlement in place, there are only so many issues Kline & Specter and Bosworth can fight over, and this latest development seems to resolve most of those things. But there’s still a chance that down the road one side will accuse the other of not complying. And then there’s Terrance DeAngelo’s lawsuit against the firm, which, for now at least, is keeping the broader dispute alive.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Russell Cohen, partner of Dechert. Courtesy photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Who Got the Work?<\/h2>\n

Russell Cohen<\/a> (Dechert<\/b>) and James Kress <\/a>(Baker Botts<\/b>) appeared for Microsoft Corp.<\/b> and Safariland LLC<\/b>, respectively, in filings before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation<\/b> relating to two antitrust actions over body cameras worn by law enforcement officers. A competitor named GovernmentGPT Inc.<\/b> has moved to coordinate the two cases in the District of New Jersey<\/b>, where an earlier case brought by the town of Howell over the body-worn cameras and other products is pending before U.S. District Judge Robert Kirsch<\/b>. Safariland, whose VieVu subsidiary was acquired in 2018 by Axon Enterprises<\/b>, prompting action<\/a> from the Federal Trade Commission<\/b>, is a named defendant in both cases, while Microsoft, which provides cloud services, was named in GovernmentGPT\u2019s lawsuit, brought in the District of Arizona<\/b> in 2023. The two companies and Axon, named in both cases, have opposed multidistrict litigation.<\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s what else is happening:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018Deeply Unsettling\u2019<\/b>: Contract workers who allege severe psychological harm from viewing \u201cdeeply unsettling\u201d and traumatic scenarios used to train generative artificial intelligence models filed a class action<\/a> against three California firms: Scale AI<\/b>, Smart Ecosystem<\/b> and Outlier AI<\/b>. The plaintiffs, called \u201ctaskers,\u201d were assigned to view violent, graphic and sexually explicit content as part of projects for companies such as Google<\/b> and Meta<\/b>, owner of social media platforms Facebook<\/b> and Instagram.<\/b> Plaintiffs alleged they took the jobs believing they would be training AI to create poems and scientific articles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Allstate Data<\/b>: Morgan & Morgan<\/b> and Clifford Law Offic<\/b>es<\/b> filed a class action<\/a> against Allstate Insurance<\/b> for allegedly illegally collecting and selling data for more than 45 million consumers to raise premiums. The suit, filed on Jan. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois,<\/b> follows Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/b>\u2019s enforcement action against Allstate earlier this month for collecting data on consumer driving behavior. Last year, General Motors<\/b> faced dozens of class actions <\/a>alleging its OnStar<\/b> subsidiary gathered data on drivers without their consent and then sent it to insurance companies, which raised their rates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kirkland Crew<\/b>: Allison Brown<\/a> is leaving <\/a>Skadden Brown<\/b> for Kirkland & Ellis<\/b> \u2014 and she\u2019s bringing four other mass tort lawyers with her. Brown, who has represented Johnson & Johnson<\/b> in numerous talcum powder trials and Ethicon<\/b> in pelvic mesh litigation, plans to open the Philadelphia office of Kirkland & Ellis. She joins Kirkland & Ellis with partners Jessica Davidson<\/a> and Christopher Cox<\/a>, both in New York, and Geoffrey Wyatt<\/a> and Nina Rose<\/a> in Washington D.C.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thanks for reading Critical Mass! I\u2019ll be back next week.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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