LADWP Crushed The Driveway On My Rental Property

[Holly Sarria]

Hello BP community!

I am really hoping there is someone out there who can give me some advice or recommend a good property attorney.

Allow me to fill you in on my story:

My family owns a rental property in the San Fernando Valley. It's a multifamily, One "front" house and one "back" house in the back of the property. There is a long driveway that leads to the house in the back. That same driveway is an easement to the back house on the neighbors property. 

On April 22nd 2023, the LADWP was called out to work on a power pole that is on the neighbors property (the neighbor behind our back house). Access to that pole was to difficult from that neighbors house so the big truck came down our driveway to the back house to access that pole. That big utility/crane truck sunk/crushed our driveway all the way back. Once that truck put its anchor supports down, it cracked the cement along with other areas of the black top driveway. 

We submitted a claim with LADWP to get compensation for redoing our driveway. They responded a few weeks ago with a letter saying that the claim was denied. Their reasoning was because there was never any work order for our address (which would make sense because the pole they were working on is on the neighbors property). 

The letter also mentioned that if we would like to continue we would need to find an attorney...

So here I am wondering if I have a winnable case and also if anyone can recommend an attorney to speak to. I've never really dealt with an attorney and I would need a "pay if you win" type of situation.

Thank you all so much for your help in advance!