Maui Wildfires and Lawsuits
On August 8th, wildfires killed at least 115 people through the Hawaiian county of Maui. Now the county has filed a lawsuit on Thursday that “intentional and malicious” mismanagement of power lines had allowed flames to spark.
The lawsuit accuses the utility, Hawaiian Electric, of failing to respond to ominous weather reports on the day of the fires, Aug. 8, when red-flag fire danger warnings were issued because of hurricane-fueled winds, and of failing to perform basic maintenance in the years beforehand.
“Defendants knew of the extreme fire danger that the high wind gusts posed to their overhead electrical infrastructure, particularly during red flag conditions,” the lawsuit said. It said power company officials had chosen “not to de-energize their power lines,” even though they knew that power poles and power lines were falling and coming into contact with dry vegetation.
This is not the only lawsuit on this matter as a pair of homeowners have sued four of the state's power companies for the fires, claiming in their suit they ignored the warning signs of the devastating fires. Rede and Monice Eder's lawsuit against Hawaiian Electric Industries - the parent company of HECO, MECO, and HELCO - is being launched "on behalf of a class and subclass of all persons similarly situated".
The Eder's own a home in historic Lahaina - one of the first towns to be completely leveled by the fires - and blame the power companies for the decimation. The lawsuit alleges the four power companies "inexcusably kept their power lines energized during forecasted high fire danger conditions".
The complaint alleges: “This destruction could have been avoided if defendants had heeded National Weather Service warnings and de-energized their power lines during predicted high-wind event.”
The National Weather Service issued warnings of high winds, cautioning that conditions such as these would make it easier for fires to spread. The added extreme conditions caused by Hurricane Dora, which was churning in the Pacific Ocean, only made things worse.
In another lawsuit, investors filed suit against Hawaiian Electric Co.’s parent company, Hawaiian Electric Industries, as well as several of its key current and former executives, alleging that the company and its top leaders violated federal securities laws.
The investor class-action suit, filed in U.S. District Court in California, seeks unspecified damages from the company and those leaders.
It states that they made “materially false and misleading statements” in their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that they failed to disclose to investors that the company’s wildfire prevention protocols were “inadequate.”
Hawaiian Electric, which provides service for about 95 percent of people in the state of Hawaii. The fire in Lahaina, in West Maui, became the country’s deadliest in more than a century, while smaller fires in central Maui also caused significant damage.
HECO has said it didn’t have a plan to shut off the power, even though utilities in other fire-prone areas have started using that strategy, because such a shut-off would have compromised Maui fire crews’ ability to fight any blazes that arose. The company’s explanation has drawn widespread criticism, and Maui water officials have said their pumps can function without HECO electricity.
LEGAL CONCLUSION
Hawaiian property owners are seizing on a legal shortcut used by fire victims in California to secure compensation from Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. for damages following the fires that ravaged Maui.
The strategy, which doesn’t require proving negligence, helped push PG&E Corp., California’s largest utility, into bankruptcy and secured victims a $13.5 billion settlement in 2020.
Property owners’ success will hinge on a determination of whether the investor-owned Hawaiian Electric functions akin to a government agency because it supplies electricity to the public.
The legal argument, known as inverse condemnation, in which a property owner can sue the government for damages, is related to the constitutional process of eminent domain — the power of a government to take private property for public infrastructure projects, and in return compensate the owner for it.
Using the legal shortcut, Maui property owners would be entitled to recover their losses without having to prove that the utility acted recklessly. In this case, Hawaiian Electric would be on the hook for damaged property, because the fires they allegedly caused took the property "for government purposes."
Thus, there are now lawsuits based on negligence, inverse condemnation, and an investor action. All of which may end up bankrupting the electric company that supplies power to 95% of all Hawaii residents. May God protect and bless the residents of Hawaii during this time.
May God Bless You, Your Business, and this Country,
Tom Winslow