LOS ANGELES—A Huntington Beach restaurant owner who suffered severe burns and brain damage—when an underground transformer exploded during a 2019 Oktoberfest celebration—has reached a conditional settlement with Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) and General Electric Co. Bernie Bischof, the owner of Old World German Restaurant, filed the negligence lawsuit in June 2020 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging the utility created a “death trap” that nearly killed him and injured some of his family members when a fireball erupted on the patio of his restaurant Oct. 5, 2019, in the middle of a crowded celebration. Attorneys for the 62-year-old Bischof filed a notice of conditional settlement with Judge Michael L. Stern on Nov. 5, stating that the accord was subject to a “fully executed settlement and release,” but no anticipated terms were divulged. Bischof suffered second- and third-degree burns over nearly half of his body and required multiple skin graft procedures to repair much of the damaged tissue that extended from …