PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Family members of some of the victims killed in the Fairmount fire last year have filed a lawsuit against the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
The Kline & Specter Law Firm says it represents families of eight of the victims who died in the fire. Tuesday, Tom Kline, founding partner of the law firm, said they filed a lawsuit on behalf of five of them. He said they’re looking to educate the public, bring accountability, and compensate the families for their terrible losses.
PHA was responsible for the property, located on North 23rd Street.
Kline and the lawsuit allege PHA knew the apartment was overcrowded, did not have a proper escape route and did not have fire alarms hard-wired.
“They allowed for, and apparently knew that there were 14 people in this, what ended up being a fire trap,” he said.
One of the defendants is PHA. The other is a California-based company that distributes “Techno Torch” lighters, the very same lighter that Kline says was found to be the ignition source.
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The company’s owner told the Associated Press he had not seen the lawsuit but says the product was manufactured in China and approved by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
A PHA spokesperson said a complaint has not been received and they are not at liberty to comment on pending litigation. However, at the time of the fire, the housing authority said the property was inspected in May 2021 and all smoke detectors were operating properly then.
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Kline said the fire – one of the deadliest fires in Philadelphia in more than 100 years that killed three adults and nine children on Jan. 5, 2022 – was a tragic, avoidable, horrible loss of life.
“Our goal is to shine a light on what happened here and see to it that hopefully we can learn lessons from it and it won't happen again.”