At our September meeting, Westcon member Glenn Peterson will be covering a large loss fire case involving a restaurant and an adjacent tenant in which several parties contributed to the loss. Mr.. Peterson was the prime expert hired to help defend the installer of the hood and duct fire protection system which is the extinguishing system installed in the hood and exhaust ducts over the cooking appliance. Other experts hired later included an appraiser and a metallurgist.

All of the fire cause and origin experts involved agreed that the fire started in the attic directly above the hood and that the cause was spontaneous ignition of the wood after long term exposure to elevated temperatures. The fire extinguishing system is not intended to protect the attic area, nevertheless the system installer was sued while other obvious deficiencies were overlooked or ignored. The analysis involved a review of all of the allegations being made by the plaintiff and various defendants and the development of additional allegations. The analysis included a review of various code requirements and a review to determine if following the code requirements would have actually prevented the fire. Several codes were reviewed including the California Fire Code, California Fire Code Standards, California Mechanical Code, and National Fire Protection Association Standards 17A, 96, 86, and 91.

 

Lessons For Experts And Attorneys.

Mr. Peterson has been an expert on several similar cases and he estimated the amount of time required for this case based upon a typical fire report. This was a high quality report which led both him and the attorney that he was working for to think that this would be a fairly simple case. Due to the determination of the plaintiff attorney and their experts it turned into a much larger case. Peterson’s advice; plan to spend much more time than expected on similar cases if you have a case with a large dollar loss, a lot of nationally known experts, a lot of people to be deposed, and some laboratory testing.

Mr. Peterson is a registered Fire Protection Engineer and a registered Mechanical Engineer. He has over 35 years of experience in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has designed fire protection systems, provided plan review for several jurisdictions, and has served as an expert witness on numerous cases. Please join us for some valuable information for construction experts.