Chapter 4. Injury To Public Utility Property of California Public Utilities Code >> Division 4. >> Chapter 4.

Any person who wilfully and maliciously does any injury to telegraph or telephone or electric power or gas property is liable to the corporation for three times the amount of actual damages sustained thereby, to be recovered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Any person who injures or destroys, through want of proper care, any necessary or useful facility or equipment of any telegraph, telephone, electrical, or gas corporation, is liable to the corporation for all damages sustained thereby. The measure of damages to the facility or equipment injured or destroyed shall be the cost to repair or replace the property injured or destroyed including direct and allocated costs for labor, materials, supervision, supplies, tools, taxes, transportation, administrative and general expense and other indirect or overhead expenses, less credit, if any, for salvage, as determined by such telegraph, telephone, electrical or gas corporations in conformity with a system of accounts established by the commission. The specifying of the measure of damages for the facility or equipment shall not preclude the recovery of such other damages occasioned thereby as may be authorized by law. Any vessel which, by dragging its anchor, or otherwise, breaks, injures or destroys any underwater cable of a telegraph, telephone or electrical corporation or pipeline of a gas corporation, subjects its owner to liability for the damages sustained thereby.

No telegraph, telephone, electrical or gas corporation can recover damages for the breaking, injury or destruction of any underwater cable or gas pipeline, unless the corporation has previously placed a marker on the bank of the waters under which the cable or pipeline is placed, indicating the place where the cable or pipeline lies.