PHILADELPHIA, P.A. (KYW Newsradio) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the Philadelphia Housing Authority in connection with the deadly 2022 fire in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood.
The suit brought by Howard Robinson, a survivor and administrator of the estate of Tiffany Robinson, who was one of 12 people killed in the fire, alleged that PHA was responsible for the blaze because it allowed the unit to become dangerously overcrowded — 14 people were living in an apartment designed for eight — and its employees knew the unit’s smoke detectors were inoperable.
PHA argued that other factors actually caused the fire including cigarette lighters left within reach of an unsupervised child and a dry Christmas tree.
Judge Nitza Quinones Alejandro acknowledged the unit was overcrowded because of PHA’s policy of transferring tenants to larger units only when they ask to be transferred, not automatically when their family size expands. However, she ruled, the policy is “too far attenuated from the specific harm at issue in this case — a deadly fire started by a child — to plausibly allege causation.”
As for the smoke detectors, she said that even accepting as true all factual allegations in the complaint, “plaintiffs have not sufficiently alleged facts showing that there was a ‘direct causal link’ between the use of non-compliant detectors and the harm alleged.”
This is one of three federal cases filed by the families of those who died. There is also a negligence case, still in the discovery phase, filed in Common Pleas Court.
The Fairmount Fire, just after New Years 2022, was the deadliest fire in the city in a century. PHA said it “supports” the judge’s decision but will always think of those who were lost.
The plaintiff’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment.