In the second trial set to determine damages for individual victims of the 2020 Labor Day fires that devastated Oregon, a jury in Portland has awarded 10 survivors $42.4 million in economic, non-economic, and punitive damages springing from PacifiCorp’s liability for the blazes.
That liability was determined in a class action case last year, when a jury first found PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, liable to an entire class for causing the fires. In that trial, $92 million was then awarded to 17 plaintiffs, and it was determined that individual damage claims would continue to be pressed by the thousands of property owners in the class. It was also established that each subsequent damage award would be increased by 25% for punitive damages against the company.
Last month, a different jury awarded $85 million to a group of 9 plaintiffs, in the first of an indeterminate number of cases designed to consider the individual damage claims of all class members. To date, three juries have returned verdicts of $220 million to 36 plaintiffs, and trials for thousands of remaining class members will continue moving forward.
The trials featured vivid and emotional testimony from survivors, including a representative from the Upward Bound Camp for Persons with Special Needs in Gates, Oregon, and numerous others with harrowing accounts of total loss.
Plaintiffs and the class are represented by the Court-appointed Lead Counsel: Keller Rohrback L.L.P., Stoll Berne, and Edelson PC. They were assisted by Eugene-based Johnson Johnson Lucas & Middleton, PC. “These Multnomah County juries have heard survivors’ stories and provided them with an opportunity to rebuild their lives, and they have held PacifiCorp accountable. And there are many more survivors of these fires who are still seeking that accountability from PacifiCorp for the fires it started,” said Matthew Preusch, a partner at Keller Rohrback LLP.
Further information about this procedure and the class action trial is available at www.PacifiCorpFireLitigation.com.