Lawmakers Question Plans For Governor’s Maui Wildfire Death Settlement Fund
The state will contribute $65 million to the fund, which is designed to limit litigation and provide some closure in cases where there were deaths or severe injuries.
Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez estimated Wednesday that 75% to 80% of the people who were seriously injured or lost family members in the Lahaina wildfire may accept payments from a pool of money the state is creating to compensate victims and resolve legal claims.
The state has been named in more than 70 lawsuits in connection with the Aug. 8 wildfire, and Gov. Josh Green has proposed setting up a One Ohana fund to quickly resolve at least some of those cases.
The plan is to have the fund pay compensation of up to $1.5 million for each fatality provided that the victims’ surviving family members agree not pursue wrongful death claims in court against the state or a half dozen other contributors to the fund.
“We all know that these lawsuits are going to proceed,” Lopez said. “It’s just a fact of life today, and so what we’ve tried to do with the fund is to bring in the other defendants in the lawsuits to see if we can’t find a way to reduce both the litigation and the future expense for this.”
Lopez on Wednesday briefed the Ways and Means Committee on the plan, and asked the committee to amend to add an emergency appropriation of $65 million to cover the state’s contribution to the fund.
That cost of the One Ohana initiative would be in addition to some $600 million the state will likely need this fiscal year to cover the state’s share of the Lahaina recovery effort thus far.
At least 101 people died in the Aug. 8 fire. Lopez said it appears at least four or five people may have suffered “life-altering injuries” in the blaze, but told lawmakers the state does not know how many people will participate in the compensation program.
“I think that there has been a lot of interest,” she said. “There has been some plaintiff’s attorneys who have said no way, but I think that there are a lot of people who are either unrepresented or would like to bring closure to everything, and are interested.”
In all, Lopez said the fund will total $175 million, and will be administered by retired The protocol for people seeking compensation will be available to the public on March 1, she said.
Green said in December that Hawaiian Electric Co. will chip in $75 million to the One Ohana initiative, and said other contributors included Maui County for $10 million, Kamehameha Schools for $17.5 million and Hawaiian Telcom for $2.5 million.
West Maui Land Co. is also contributing $2.5 million, and Charter Communications, which does business here as Spectrum, will contribute another $2.5 million, according to the governor’s office.
Lopez said she believes those contributions were based on what each of those entities thought they could afford, and do not imply any of them has any degree of liability.
People who were injured in the fire or lost family members and do not want to participate in the One Ohana program can forgo payment from the fund and sue instead. If those people later win judgments or the state settles with them, that would add to the total cost to the state, Lopez said.
The fund will not have any impact on lawsuits filed over property damage, and Lopez said she cannot guess what those suits could someday cost.
Lopez said the state will be making it quite clear that it is not admitting liability for the fire by making the payments, or accepting responsibility for anyone else’s liability. “Right now, I’m going to say we’re not liable for anything,” Lopez said.
That prompted a question from Sen. Michelle Kidani, who wondered why the state is moving so rapidly to settle cases if it is not liable.
“I will say that the state had property that was damaged by the fire, so we did own property in the large swath of area, the burn,” Lopez replied. “We’re one of the deep pockets. It happens all the time.”
“We’re never going to come out and say that we’re liable for X amount, but a court may in five years, and we don’t know what the state of the parties will be in five years, and we don’t know what a judge will decide in five years, and so it really is sort of a risk-benefit analysis of trying to settle earlier for less money,” Lopez said.
“When we consider the pros and cons, it’s about how much money are we going to spend down the road, versus trying to settle now,” she said.
Most of the guidance in developing the fund came from , an expert in alternative dispute resolution who specializes in claims over catastrophic cases such as the World Trade Center attack on 9/11, Lopez said.
Ibarra, who is volunteering his time as administrator of the One Ohana fund, said in an interview he has long advocated for these kinds of alternative dispute resolution efforts because they are quicker, and the parties have some degree of control over the result.
“It’s less expensive, it’s (a) more certain result, because you know what you’re getting when you agree to things, with less anxiety,” he said.
Court cases can take years with appeals, he said, and “in a jury trial, you never know. It’s not certain what you’re going to get in a court proceeding.”
Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.
