HONOLULU– Parties to lawsuits seeking compensation for last year’s wildfires on Maui have reached a point Global agreement worth US$4 billion, said a court filing Friday, nearly a year after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.
The term sheet detailing the settlement is not publicly available, but liaison attorneys filed a motion Friday saying the global settlement seeks to resolve all Maui fire claims for $4.037 billion. The motion asks the judge to order that insurers cannot go after the defendants separately to recover money paid to policyholders.
“We have no illusions that this will heal Maui,” Jake Lowenthal, a Maui attorney selected as one of four liaisons to coordinate the cases, told the Associated Press. “We know for sure this won’t make up for what they lost.”
Hawaii Governor Josh Green said in a statement that seven defendants will pay $4.037 billion to compensate those who have already filed suits over the Aug. 8, 2023, fires that killed 102 people and destroyed historic downtown Lahaina, Maui. .
Green said the proposed agreement is an agreement in principle. He said he was subject to resolving claims from insurance companies that had already been paid for property losses and other damages.
Green said the agreement “will help heal our people.”
“My priority as governor was to expedite the settlement and avoid lengthy and painful litigation so that as many resources as possible can go to those affected by the wildfires as quickly as possible,” he said in a statement.
He said it is unprecedented to resolve cases like this in just one year.
“It will be good if our people don’t have to wait to rebuild their lives as long as others have in many places that have suffered similar tragedies,” Green said.
Lowenthal noted that there were “extenuating circumstances” that made lawyers fear the litigation would drag on for years.
Some attorneys involved expressed concern about reaching a settlement before Hawaiian Electric Company’s possible bankruptcy.
Now that an agreement has been reached, more work needs to be done on the next steps, such as how to divide the amount.
“This is the first step toward allowing victims of the Maui fire to receive compensation sooner rather than later,” Lowenthal said.
More than 600 lawsuits have been filed over the deaths and destruction caused by the fires, which burned thousands of homes and displaced 12,000 people. In the spring, a judge appointed mediators and ordered all parties to participate in settlement negotiations.
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