The resident of the Los Angeles house that was heavily damaged by fire after Anne Heche crashed into it is suing the estate of the late actor for at least $2 million, alleging negligence, trespass and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Heche was declared dead in August, days after plowing her Mini Cooper into the Mar Vista home where Lynne Mishele was living with her two dogs and a tortoise.
The lawsuit against Heche’s son Homer Laffoon, as executor of the actor’s estate, was filed Thursday by attorney Shawn Holley in L.A. County Superior Court. It alleges Heche’s crash “stunned all of Hollywood, if not the country and the world, and personally ravaged the life of Plaintiff Lynne Mishele.”
“The violent impact from the crash caused severe structural compromise to the home, which immediately erupted in a towering inferno” at 1766 Walgrove Ave., the lawsuit says. “Fifty-nine firefighters took 65 minutes to access, confine and fully extinguish the stubborn flames within the heavily-damaged residence.”
In addition to losing her longtime home and “an entire lifetime of possessions” in the fire, including “irreplaceable tokens and mementos from her deceased parents,” Mishele “was left terrified, severely traumatized, and without a place to live,” the lawsuit says. She has allegedly been suffering aftereffects including insomnia, nightmares and flashbacks to the incident, it says.
“Plaintiff has been injured economically, psychologically, physically and emotionally, and has suffered and will continue to suffer substantial damage well into the future,” the document says.
An attorney for Laffoon did not respond immediately Tuesday to a request for comment. The lawsuit is asking for a jury trial.
The owners of the home started a GoFundMe campaign for Mishele that has raised more than $180,000 to date.
“The news of Anne Heche passing is devastating,” Mishele said in an Instagram video in August. “Her family and her friends and her children especially really have suffered a great loss, and my heart goes out for them. This entire situation is tragic, and there really are just no words.”
