RANCHO SANTA FE — Rancho Santa Fe residents are among 270 Witch Creek Fire victims who have come together to sue San Diego Gas & Electric and Sempra Energy.

The legal complaint was filed April 11 in San Diego Superior Court.

Most of the plaintiffs are from the Ramona area, but others are from areas between Ramona and Rancho Santa Fe. Although most are individuals, a few businesses and family trusts are among the plaintiffs.

Terry Broyles and his wife, Yvonne Kalench, are among the Rancho Santa Fe residents included in the lawsuit. The couple lost their home on Zumaque Street on Oct. 22.

Attorneys representing the fire survivors are San Diego-based Terry and Gerald Singleton, and Tom Tosdal and Mitchell Wagner of Murrieta. Terry Singleton has successfully litigated other similar cases, such as a fire in the Guejito area in the late 1990s, Wagner and Tosdal said at a news conference in Escondido on April 11.

Plaintiffs claim that SDG&E and Sempra Energy acted negligently and with “intentional wrongful conduct” to cause the Witch Creek Fire of October. The suit states that the severe Cedar Fire in 2003 should have been ample warning to the utilities that there were weaknesses in the design, construction, operation, inspection and maintenance of the utilities’ power lines in the backcountry. It also states that the utilities knew that high Santa Ana winds are a “fact of life” in Southern California and that “improper inspection and clearing” of vegetation around the power lines could combine to create a high fire risk.

According to the suit, 50 people whose identities are “presently unknown to the plaintiffs” are also thought to be “legally responsible in some manner for the harm caused the plaintiffs,” as alleged in the complaint.

The case has not been presented as a class action suit, but rather it is intended to be tried by a jury that can make individual judgments regarding damages requested by each individual or business.

“There are so many variations in this case,” Wagner said. “We have to deal with the market value of properties, plus artifacts that were lost, heirlooms and the emotional damages, too.” Class-action cases are for when people have lost similar amounts in similar situations, he said.

Broyles said he cannot give an estimate of the value of his 7,000-square-foot home at the time of the fire, but that it was “substantial.” The hacienda-style, adobe-brick home had four bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. The swimming pool, garage and koi pond also were damaged in the fire, Broyles said.

The legal complaint filed on behalf of the 270 plaintiffs states that the defendant utility corporations effectively “took” the properties in question by “inverse condemnation” and did “trespass” on those properties. In addition, the complaint alleges that the utilities committed “intentional infliction of emotional distress” on the fire victims due to the “reckless disregard” of safety and other regulations imposed on utilities by the Public Utilities Commission.

The suit asks for punitive and exemplary damages for the plaintiffs so the utilities will be forced to make changes in their operations, Tosdal said.

Tosdal and Wagner said there are solutions to the problems of electrical arcing when the wires blow together in the wind, or near each other, and a spark jumps between them. Arcing is reported to have caused the fire.

“There are spreaders to keep the lines apart and material sheaths to insulate the lines,” Wagner said.

“Electrical arcing is an act of mankind, not an act of God or nature,” Tosdal said.

The group of attorneys representing the fire victims held a public demonstration in Ramona in February to show how the arcing can happen. Broyles and Kalench attended the presentation and then decided to join the legal case.

“There seemed to be justification for the lawsuit in terms of what probably caused the fire,” Broyles said.

“There is a pattern of utilities blaming someone else,” Wagner said.

He said there are other parts of the country where utilities operate differently to protect consumers. He used Florida and Idyllwild as examples of places where power is shut down during high winds.

The attorneys said they couldn’t offer an estimate of the amount of damages that could be awarded in this case. “Our clients are just now putting together all their loss figures,” Wagner said.

It will be up to each plaintiff to prove the loss amount. In general, the suit asks for awards to cover “reasonable costs, disbursements and expenses, including reasonable attorney’s fees, appraisal fees and engineering fees, in the prosecution of this cause of action.”

Until then, Broyles and Kalench are living in a rented home in the Covenant and are working on plans to build a similar home on their property. Although they were insured, they are finding that the insurance does not cover the entire cost to replace their home.

“It was devastating,” Broyles said of their losses.

Kalench’s two sons, Cole and Jackson, attend local schools.

The family lived on the edge of San Dieguito Canyon. They will need to move the new home further back from the canyon to be safer. They are working with the Rancho Santa Fe Association on the plans.