Maybe the biggest question surrounding the 10 freeway closure is, who's to blame? Aside from the actual arsonist, that is.
Accusations have been flying back and forth between local and state officials and the company Apex, who leased the land under the freeway, and this 'blame game' will most likely lead to some lawsuits.
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L.A. based legal analyst and attorney Miguel Custodio told KNX News Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman, "I think what's gonna be important is whether or not Caltrans was on notice or was reasonably supposed to have been on notice of all the materials that were being stored underneath the bridge."
If Apex is to be believed, Caltrans was well aware, and Custodio said, if that's true, "I just don't see how Caltrans could have been ok with that. So either they were not doing the inspections, or they just somehow looked the other way and said, well, if we're getting lease money from the tenants, then we're fine with it."
Caltrans already had a lawsuit against Apex before the fire for failing to pay rent, but the company says it is a retaliatory suit in response to their own claim that CalTrans' was in breach of agreement.
Custodio said, "Really, at the end of the day, everybody's gonna be suing everybody."
"This is gonna take a long time, as a lot of big cases tend to do, but this is really gonna come down to what is found out during the discovery," Custodio said.
According to Custodio, stories are circulating that an unnamed Caltrans engineer is saying Caltrans knew what was underneath the bridge, so if evidence is obtained to substantiate those claims, Caltrans could be the one taking the blame.
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