Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think its absurd to try to bill all the costs of every fire to the utility that may have sparked it ... PG&E has no control over the weather, winds, firefighting budgets, or forest policy, yet it alone is now to be held in total responsibility for all fires that originate with its equipment? thats absurd. There are two reasons why you're wrong. First, PG&E can't control the weather but did have control over its o…
The law is strict liability, meaning it doesn't matter whether there was a good-faith effort to prevent the problem or not.
I'm not advocating strict liability here. I'm arguing that when a large company has a history of negligence that gave rise to similar incidents, the burden should shift to them to prove they were not the cause of the accident.