Plaintiffs in Maui wildfire case reach $4 billion settlement against Hawaiian Electric and others

By CNN Newsource

Published August 2, 2024 7:16 PM

By Luciana Lopez and Ramishah Maruf, CNN

(CNN) — The governor of Hawaii on Friday announced a $4 billion settlement to resolve lawsuits stemming from the wildfires that devastated Maui last year.

Under the settlement, which must still be approved by the court, “the seven defendants will pay $4.037 billion to provide compensation to all those who have brought claims for compensation arising from the Aug. 8, 2023 windstorms and wildfires on Maui, including the approximately 2,200 affected parties who filed lawsuits,” according to a news release from Hawaii Gov. Josh Green’s office.

The defendants include the state of Hawaii, County of Maui, Hawaiian Electric, Kamehameha Schools, West Maui Land Co., Hawaiian Telcom and Spectrum/Charter Communications, according to the release.

The settlement “will help our people heal,” Green said in the release. “My priority as Governor was to expedite the agreement and to avoid protracted and painful lawsuits so as many resources as possible would go to those affected by the wildfires as quickly as possible.”

Hawaiian Electric said the settlement came after four months of mediation. “Our objective is to make sure a tragedy like this never happens again,” Shelee Kimura, president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric, said in a statement.

Spectrum declined to comment. CNN has reached out to the other defendants for comment.

Jesse Creed, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, told CNN the settlement came about through “extensive negotiations” in person and on Zoom. Among the factors weighed, he said, were not just the defendants’ liability but also their ability to pay.

“In this case the challenge has always been that the devastation to the people of Maui is enormous,” he said, noting that homes, businesses, places of worship and other community building blocks were lost.

And the fight continued against the insurance companies, he said. “As a lawyer for the plaintiffs, we don’t think the insurance companies should take a penny as long as the victims are not fully compensated.”

Jacob Lowenthal, another plaintiff attorney, also spoke of the importance of helping the community rebuild, in a statement to CNN.

“We recognize that this settlement is far from making the community of Maui whole. But this will provide critical compensation to Maui sooner than much later without extensive litigation that brings with it no promise or guarantee that more would even be possible,” he said in the statement. “This money is the first step of many to allow our home to heal.”

The Hawaiian wildfires last August burned over 2,000 acres in Lahaina, and hundreds of acres in Kula and Olinda, on the island of Maui. The resulting destruction of homes, businesses and infrastructure, along with the loss of tourism may have resulted in up to $6 billion in economic losses, according to an estimate from Moody’s RMS. The fires killed more than 100 people.

The Maui disaster began unfolding on August 8 last year, according to a report from the state’s attorney general. It would eventually become what Green at the time called “the largest natural disaster we’ve ever experienced.”

Images of the fire horrified the nation, with the Maui wildfires becoming the deadliest in the US in more than a century. Buildings were reduced to ash, homes were destroyed and communities were left struggling to rebuild.

“It seemed like an apocalypse,” one Maui firefighter told CNN last year. “Everything seemed to be on fire.”

This story has been updated with additional context and developments.