LOS ANGELES : 26 Sue Over Injuries in Pico-Union Apartment Fire

Twenty-six victims of a May 3 apartment house fire in the Pico-Union/Westlake area have filed a lawsuit against the building’s owners and the city and county of Los Angeles, claiming that numerous safety code violations contributed to the fire in which 10 people died.

Attorney G. Monty Manibog filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of 26 people who suffered fractures, smoke inhalation and lacerations as they fled the burning, smoke-filled 69-unit building on Burlington Avenue.

The lawsuit accuses Richard I. Kaufman of Yale Management Services Inc., the building’s owner, of failing to comply with an order from fire officials to post a fire watch guard in the building where there were numerous violations and two previous suspicious fires. The city and the county were also named for failing to force the owners to comply with the fire code.

Assistant Los Angeles City Atty. Thomas C. Hokinson said the city could not be held liable. “The immunities for fighting fires are very broad,” Hokinson said.