In a complaint filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, David Garth and Phoutthasone Phommavongsay accused the property owners at 1734 22nd Ave. of creating conditions that led to the fire, saying the owners knew their tenant had brought in large tanks of chemicals to fuel a hash oil laboratory in the basement and that they did nothing to stop it.
Defendants Peter and Diane De Martini often dropped by to visit tenant Darron Price, the 53-year-old man accused of causing the blast after a clothes dryer sparked butane vapors in his lab, according to the complaint. Yet despite the amount of time that members of the De Martini family spent at 1734 22nd Ave., they neglected to inspect Price’s sprawling operation, which occupied much of the space in his garage, the complaint said.
The conflagration on the morning of February 9 “rocked the normally quiet streets of the Inner Sunset,” the complaint said, killing 51-year-old Rita Price, severely injuring her caretaker and ravaging multiple homes.
Prosecutors charged Darron Price with a raft of crimes, including involuntary manslaughter, manufacturing a controlled substance, reckless burning, child endangerment and elder abuse.
Garth and Phommavongsay lay out an unsettling sequence of events on February 9, saying that Garth left home at 8:45 a.m. to drop Phommavongsay off at work and buy groceries. Minutes later, Garth picked up a Lyft passenger and was driving the person to Oakland when his phone began buzzing — first with text messages about the explosion, then a call from Phommavongsay, who was “hysterically crying” because their home was on fire, the complaint said.
By the time firefighters knocked out the blaze, it had done “tremendous damage,” the complaint said, incinerating family heirlooms, photographs, and a collection of Judaica that Garth sold as a side business. Exhibits included with the lawsuit show the plaintiffs’ charred kitchen, piled in debris.
They are suing for negligence and premises liability, contending the house at 1734 22 Ave. had numerous building, electrical, and construction code violations — a lethal environment for the barrels of combustible substances that Darron Price stocked after he moved there in 2021.
“Allowing a tenant to operate a highly dangerous drug lab in your garage is a ticking time bomb,” said David Hollenberg, an attorney representing the plaintiffs.
Garth and Phommavongsay said they suffered substantial economic losses from the fire, ranging from possessions that were destroyed, to medical expenses, to emotional scars, to loss of income. They seek an undisclosed sum to compensate for these damages.
Reach Rachel Swan: rswan@sfchronicle.com
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