|
Law in Contemporary Society
|
|
Wildfires, Public Utilities, & Plaintiff's Bar-- By RafaelMiranda - 22 Feb 2024 Lahaina is a small quiet coastal town off the northwest coast of Maui, Hawaii. In late August 2023, a large fire burned down the vast majority of the town. At a high level the causes are clear: climate change, dry-brush and deteriorating infrastructure. Within weeks of the devastation, tort lawyers descended rapidly on the large island (about twice the size of Manhattan), seeking clients to prepare lawsuits against Maui’s largest utility company—Hawaii Electric. As a law student taking Torts right now, I wish there was a substantive alternative to tort attorneys—working on contingency—litigating against utility companies defended by white shoe firms billing by the hour.Good & Bad (Plaintiffs Bar)Attorneys representing plaintiffs in wildfire proceedings often work on contingency, meaning they don’t get paid until the cases settle. The upside is a low barrier to entry for plaintiffs regardless of income, when you factor in something financially destabilizing, such as a wildfire burning down your house, the low barrier to entry is appealing. The process is often very formulaic and the vast majority of the claims go straight to settlement—which means less time in limbo—a great feature for families who may have just lost everything… On the other hand, from experience—a lot of mass tort attorneys are cheap, by that I mean they cut corners anywhere they can. From grammar errors on a settlement agreement to creating complicated, convoluted settlement schemes that may not always pay their clients adequately. (see https://www.wsj.com/business/pg-e-fire-victims-will-soon-receive-final-compensation-they-wont-be-made-whole-925d4eff)Defense PracticePG&E, SDG&E, SCE, PacifiCorp? , and Hawaii Electric have a few things in common: they’re public utility companies, they are facing or have already faced liability in the tens of millions for negligence related to wildfires, and they’re all represented by high powered law firms charging thousands of dollars. These companies spend hundreds of thousands in lawyers fees to do three things: 1. Settle without trial to the extent possible 2. Settle through a meditation protocol 3. Settle privately outside the steps 1 and 2 for the lowest amount possible. There isn’t a positive attribute to these types of arrangements, of course big law firms open new matters for mega companies across the US every day—however there is something uniquely distasteful about a private-public utility from doing the same, especially one whose product is keeping the lights on. Discovery….when I worked for a firm in Southern California, the job evolved from assisting with administrative tasks related to the countless depositions our firm set up to managing the mediation protocol set up jointly between plaintiffs and defendants to “streamline” the settlement process. The process was incredibly bleak. We worked day and night with experts whose sole job was ensuring the costs plaintiffs reported could be cut down by at least 50%. There was a coldness to the process which everyone ignored as long as they clocked in, billed their hours, and went home. I was particularly upset at the extent to which some of these “experts'”.. waffled on minimal costs—those which plaintiffs reported byt couldn’t be supported (such as the loss of $1000 in the fire). By the time, our side and plaintiff’s side engaged in 2 back and forths, the billable hours spent on that back and forth cost more than the amount everyone was disagreeing on.Bad IncentivesDefense firms love public utilities because they are large institutional clients that will almost always pay a premium and on time. Moreover, for some states (such as CA), they have a monopoly on services that ensures that even if they go bankrupt, they’ll always have consumers. When you factor in the sheer amount of billables that litigating a mass tort brings—with thousands of plaintiffs and a few hundred different plaintiffs attorneys—it’s frankly a money machine yet it does little to make people who lost everything whole. On the flip side, different plaintiffs firms are typically rife with infighting on various matters such as “who should be elected as leadership plaintiffs” or if both sides create a protocol on what documents should become part of the minimum readiness threshold for mediation. The intra-party dynamics of the wildfire plaintiff bar can at times, essentially only serve to delay settlement for their clients and typically eats up both time and money.You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:
|
|
