small business arson

My partner and I bought an established retail business in March, remodeled/restocked and opened the doors end Apr. One week after our opening the paint store next door to our business in the same building was set on fire, destroying the entire building. We lost about 130k in inventory/ ff&e, we were insured for 100k and have been reimbursed that amount from our insurance leaving us at a 30k loss. The building renovation will be done Oct 1, in the meantime we have our business interruption insurance policy paying us enough to pay our salaries and current expenses (barely). Police arrested the manager of the paint store for arson with some strong evidence but he is saying he was set up and it will go to trial. What advice would you give to us? We are losing out on thousands in profits every month we are closed, not to mention all the time it took to do our original renovations (by ourself) and now will have to take up to a month to set up our new store again. Plus the stress of it all is overwhelming, I had quit a good job and taken a 2nd mortgage to get this business going and then this happened. Is the paint store owner liable for all of these expenses to us? Or do we have to wait to see who was at fault for the fire? Should we sue?

It may be hard to sue the owner unless he was involved. But anybody that caused the fire could certainly be sued.

That's what I was afraid of. If they prove the manager guilty for arson then we won't get much as he is just a young fellow with no money. I was hoping we could go after the owner of the store to recoup.

That could be tough, but perhaps have a lawyer briefly review the entire situation and see if any facts may argue for liabilty of the owner...