In a groundbreaking ruling on Tuesday, a jury in Portland, the headquarters of PacifiCorp, mandated the Oregon electric utility, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, to shell out a minimum of $62 million to nine homeowners grappling with the aftermath of the 2020 wildfires that wreaked havoc across the state.
The compensation breakdown included nearly $6.3 million for property damage and other economic losses, with an additional $56 million earmarked for addressing emotional distress, pain, and suffering. The trial, commencing on January 9 at Multnomah County Circuit Court, marked the inaugural proceeding among a series scheduled this year to gauge the extent of PacifiCorp’s liability for the catastrophic fires, which incurred an estimated $1.9 billion in property damage and other losses.
The lawsuit, representing around 5,000 homeowners and business proprietors, is a class action initiated in 2020, asserting that the fires ravaged approximately 2,400 properties. While PacifiCorp plans to contest the verdict, it acknowledged settling separate claims linked to the fires and expressed a commitment to resolving other “reasonable” claims.
Matthew Preusch, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, hailed the jury’s decision as a pivotal stride towards securing just compensation for the victims of the devastating fires. A prior ruling in June had already found PacifiCorp grossly negligent, setting the stage for punitive damages at 25% of compensatory damages, a provision that resonates with the current case.
Despite the company’s appeal of earlier verdicts, it continues to maintain its stance on fire prevention measures, insisting that power shutdowns were unwarranted based on available information. In the recent trial, the jury heard harrowing accounts from victims, including a man in his late 60s who, along with his wife, leaped from a 30-foot cliff into a river to escape the flames. The narratives painted a vivid picture of the Santiam Canyon fire’s fury and the sheer devastation caused by the Echo Mountain and South Obenchain fires.
The attorneys for the plaintiffs sought a minimum of $5 million in damages for each individual, encompassing pain, suffering, and other non-economic losses, in addition to property damages. PacifiCorp’s legal representatives, while expressing support for compensating victims for property damage, proposed that awards of $2 million or less per plaintiff would be adequate for non-economic losses.
The wildfires of 2020 scarred Oregon, consuming approximately 1,900 square miles (1.22 million acres), obliterating over 5,000 structures, and claiming at least nine lives. As PacifiCorp braces for the financial repercussions of this legal saga, the repercussions are poised to reverberate throughout the state and the utility industry at large.
