Maui Wildfire Plaintiffs Reach $4 Billion Settlement as Anniversary Nears
The New York Times
Hawaiian Electric is expected to pay the largest share — nearly $2 billion — but avoided a heftier price tag that could have forced the utility into bankruptcy.
Nearly a year after a ferocious wildfire on Maui killed 102 people and leveled the historic town of Lahaina, Hawaii’s largest utility has agreed to pay the largest share of a legal settlement totaling just over $4 billion and compensating more than 10,000 homeowners, businesses and other plaintiffs.
The proposed agreement was filed late Friday in a Maui-based state court, six days before the anniversary of the disaster. Fire victims and insurers have spent months in court-ordered mediation with the state, Maui County, large private landowners and utilities within the fire zone to resolve more than 600 lawsuits brought in state and federal courts by survivors of the catastrophe.
The settlement, which remains subject to court approval, will cover less than half of the overall cost of the disaster — estimated at nearly $12 billion — which cut a path of destruction through one of the world’s most spectacularly beautiful destinations. More than 3,000 homes and other structures were damaged or destroyed, and thousands of residents were killed, injured or displaced.
Gov. Josh Green had pushed for a single global agreement among all the parties to litigation to swiftly compensate fire victims, rather than extending negotiations for years without payment. State officials had also hoped to ward off a potentially devastating financial hit to Maui County and the bankruptcy of Hawaiian Electric, which provides electricity for more than nine in 10 of the state’s residents on Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Hawaii Island.
“Settling a matter like this within a year is unprecedented,” Mr. Green said on Friday. “And it will be good that our people don’t have to wait to rebuild their lives as long as others have in many places that have suffered similar tragedies.”
Under the proposed terms, which do not include any admission of liability, the utility is expected to pay a little less than half of the $4.037 billion settlement, $1.99 billion, a considerable amount but less than the potential $4.9 billion liability that the investment research firm Capstone estimated last year would most likely bankrupt the company.
