Liability for faulty electrical work has reached new heights.

As electricians you make it your responsibility to do safe installations and repairs, but here's a great reason to educate your customers, and ensure that they understand that having old, unsafe, unchecked electrical work can hurt not only them, but others as well, and potentially have a huge financial impact on them.

Last month, the Federal government sued a homeowner for nearly $25 million, contending his negligence sparked a 2013 fire in the mountains east of Los Angeles. It's a fire that forced 5,000 people from their homes and endangered countless lives, including those of the firefighters that battled the blaze.

AP News report on 7/15: the lawsuit says that a short in a poorly maintained electrical junction box sparked a blaze in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs that charred more than 27,500 acres of brush and timber — about 43 square miles — and at one point threatened the town of Idyllwild.

Investigators determined that the lid of the plastic box containing wires was warped and ajar, the lawsuit said.

"As a result, an electrical discharge inside the box shot sparks and hot material out of the box and onto dry ground vegetation below," according to the lawsuit.

"Property owners and their agents have a responsibility to ensure that property under their control is maintained in a safe fashion," U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker said in a statement.

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Mike Holt's comment: This is crazy.