Wilson

Defendant Southern California Edison Company (Edison) appeals from a judgment following a jury trial in which the jury found in favor of plaintiff Simona Wilson on her claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED), negligence, and nuisance, and awarded her $1,050,000 in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages. All of her claims are based upon her allegation that Edison failed to properly supervise, secure, operate, maintain, or control the electrical substation next door to plaintiff’s house (the Topaz substation), allowing uncontrolled stray electrical currents to enter the home. Stray current (or stray voltage) is the unavoidable byproduct of grounding an electrical system.

The gas company found stray voltage on Wilson’s gas meter the year after she moved into the house, and again two years later. Edison paid for certain measures taken by the gas company, which virtually eliminated the voltage on the meter. After Wilson remodeled her master bathroom (four years after she moved into the house), she began to feel low levels of electricity in her shower because the shower had metal pipes and the drain was connected to the ground, which…