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Family member of UC-Berkeley fire victim sues landlords



Updated 12:00 PM ET January 16, 2001


  By Andrea O'Brien
  Daily Californian
  U. California-Berkeley

  (U-WIRE) BERKELEY, Calif. -- The brother of the University of California at
  Berkeley student killed with her parents in a house fire filed a wrongful
death lawsuit
  against the owners of the building earlier this month.

  UC-Berkeley senior Azalea Jusay moved into a wooden-frame apartment on
  Martin Luther King Jr. Way with the help of her parents, Francisco and
Florita
  Jusay, the day before a fire broke out, killing them all.

  On Aug. 20, the three were sleeping in bedrooms upstairs when a moving box
left
  on a dining room furnace ignited and the two-alarm blaze swept through the
house,
  said Berkeley Fire Chief Reginald Garcia.

  One of Jusay's roommates, Michelle Plesa, escaped from the building by
jumping
  out of a second-story window, but the Jusays, trapped inside, died of smoke
  inhalation.

  Jonas Jusay, Azalea Jusay's brother, filed a negligence complaint against
the
  landlords, Manuel and Carolina Reburiano, with the Alameda County Superior
  Court on Jan. 4.

  The lawsuit alleges the gas heater that ignited the box was malfunctioning
and not
  properly repaired, there were no smoke detectors in the building and the
windows
  in the second floor bedrooms were negligently maintained.

  "Defendants negligently operated, inspected, maintained, managed, serviced
and
  equipped the (building) so as to effectively furnish to its occupants a
dangerous,
  defective and hazardous premises containing latent defects, which created a
  foreseeable and unreasonable risk of fire and harm to its occupants," said
the
  lawsuit.

  Carolina Reburiano declined to comment on the lawsuit.

  The fire was ruled accidental but Garcia said they found no trace of fire
alarms in
  the building.

  Plesa said after the incident that she felt the house was a "death trap."
She said she
  did not hear any fire alarms, and did not wake up until she heard passersby
yelling
  "fire."

  "The house was just engulfed in flames," she said. "It was amazing how quick
it
  was. There was no smoke detector, nothing. I woke up to two angels who
  screamed 'fire' in the street. They saved my life."

  When Plesa awoke choking from smoke, she said she yelled for the Jusays to
wake
  up, and only when she heard Florita Jusay scream in response did she jump
from
  the second story window. She said she did not have any idea the Jusays were
  trapped in the building, unable to open the bedroom window.

  "(The deceased), without sufficient warning and means of escape, were
overcome
  by the fire and died from the effects thereof," said the lawsuit.

  The lawsuit also said that the "dangerous and defective heater and
negligently
  maintained fire detection devices, fire prevention devices, and means of
egress from
  the Premises," violated several ordinances and regulations.

  California law requires all landlords to install and maintain smoke
detectors, and to
  have them operable at the time the tenant's contract takes effect.

  Smoke detectors must be installed in the common areas of every apartment,
every
  bedroom in a rooming house and on every floor of a single-family house.

  Plesa said the five girls that lived in the two-story building did not think
about
  installing smoke detectors. She said they had assumed the landlord already
installed
  them.

  All bedrooms below the fourth floor are required by the California Building
Code to
  have at least one operable window or door for emergency escape.

  Last fall, Garcia said at a press conference, however, that the window in
Jusay's
  room was permanently sealed. He added that both Jusay and her parents died
out
  of their beds, perhaps trying to escape the smoke-filled house.

  Jonas Jusay asked for medical, funeral and burial expenses for his sister
and
  parents, as well as legal costs and other unspecified damages.

  (C) 2001 Daily Californian via U-WIRE

Doug Gordner, Life Safety Inspector
Ithaca College Campus Safety
Life Safety Division
101 Safety Building
Ithaca, New York 14850
(607)-274-1846
(607)-274-1868 (fax)
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CFSI-1
Member:
National Fire Sprinkler Association (NFSA)
International Society of Fire Service Instructors (ISFSI)