Family of Bartender Killed in Explosion File 2nd Suit : Courts: The Newport Beach restaurant’s insurance adjusters are alleged to have destroyed or lost crucial evidence linked the fatal hot water tank explosion.

The family of a bartender killed in an explosion last year at a popular Southwestern-style restaurant in Newport Beach have filed a second lawsuit, alleging the restaurant’s insurance adjusters lost or destroyed crucial evidence from the blast.

Antonio De Santiago, 39, was preparing for brunch at the El Torito Grill at Fashion Island on Aug. 1 when a hot water storage tank exploded, demolishing a corner of the restaurant. De Santiago was killed and five others were injured.

Lawyers for De Santiago’s estranged wife, Maria Luisa Fernandez De Santiago, and his two children, Mireya and Eloisa, filed a wrongful-death suit against the makers of the hot water equipment in November.

Their latest suit, filed Friday in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, is against El Torito Restaurants Inc.; the company’s insurance adjusters Toplis & Harding Inc.; and Orange County-based investigator William F. Schultheis. The family’s lawyer said insurance adjusters stored several pieces of equipment from the explosion, but now cannot produce the items.

“They have deprived us of the opportunity to prove there was a defect that caused the explosion,” said attorney William M. Paoli, who represents the family.

Representatives of Toplis and Harding Inc. could not be reached for comment Friday, and a lawyer for El Torito said she could not comment on the case because she had not seen the lawsuit.

In court papers, Newport Beach Deputy Fire Marshal Jim Upton said that after the blast he handed over various pieces including gauges, tubes and a “pilot module” to Schultheis, under the agreement that they were to be made available later.

Paoli said the pilot module was one of the critical pieces, because it controlled how hot the water in the system could become. That piece and several others were lost or destroyed, he said.

In August, California state safety officials blamed El Torito for the explosion and fined the company $5,000, saying the restaurant’s water storage tank blew up because a pressure valve was missing.

The valve would have relieved pressure and kept it from building in the tank that eventually exploded, said investigators from the California Occupational Safety Hazard Administration. The tank was connected to a water heater in a storage room.

In November, the bartender’s family sued Debin Enterprises Inc., the equipment vendor; Rheem Manufacturing Co. and Raypak Inc., a Rheem subsidiary, the equipment manufacturers; and Honeywell Inc., makers of some controls on the equipment.

George W. Flynn, Minneapolis-based lawyer for Honeywell, said he is trying to sort through the evidence that remains. “Either negligently, or through a bad job, the stuff just got lost,’ Flynn said.