Our legal team filed the first lawsuit and first class action related to the Lahaina Fire (the “Maui Wildfire Lawsuit”). The Maui Wildfire Lawsuit seeks to hold Maui Electric Company, Limited; Hawaiian Electric Company, Incorporated; Hawaiian Electric Light Company, Incorporated; and Hawaiian Electric Industries responsible for the Lahaina Fire. We refer to these defendants as the (“MECO Defendants”).
Nine days after the fire, our legal team asked the Court for an order that would require the MECO Defendants to preserve any evidence removed from the area where we believe the Lahaina Fire started (the Area of Origin). In response, the Court issued an Interim Discovery Order. That Interim Discovery Order requires the MECO Defendants (1) to preserve any evidence removed from the Area of Origin; (2) to provide our legal team with a written inventory of the evidence the MECO Defendants removed from the Area of Origin; and (3) to provide our legal team, experts, and investigators access to any removed evidence.
Less than three weeks after the devastating Lahaina Fire, our legal team filed a First Amended Complaint, which added the County of Maui as a defendant and seeks to hold the County responsible for gross negligence related to the fire. This First Amended Complaint is the operative complaint pending before the Court right now.
Exactly four weeks after the Lahaina Fire, and following continuing investigation, our legal team sought the Court’s permission to file a Second Amended Complaint. If the Court allows that amendment, the Second Amended Complaint would add additional defendants, including both Telecommunications Defendants who attached their equipment to the MECO Defendants’ power poles and Private and Public Landowners who own land in or adjacent to Lahaina where the fire either ignited and rapidly spread. The Second Amended Complaint seeks to hold these Defendants responsible for various claims, including negligence, gross negligence, and private nuisance.
Every day, our legal team continues to investigate the cause of this deadly wildfire. Our team is working tirelessly to protect the rights of victims and survivors and to do everything we can to prevent this kind of deadly and catastrophic wildfire from ever happening again.
Why Did We File A Class Action?
We believe a Class Action would be the most efficient, cost-effective, and streamlined process for victims and survivors of the Lahaina Fire. The Maui Fire Lawsuit seeks to gather all responsible parties before the Court, prove their liability, and determine their share of responsibility. If the Court allows the Maui Fire Lawsuit to proceed as a Class Action, that litigation would avoid duplicative work and costs and promote efficient case resolution.
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An Oregon court certified a class action for a similar wildfire case. There, victims and survivors sued PacifiCorp, an Oregon electric utility company, for damages from wildfires ignited during a 2020 windstorm. In 2023, a jury found PacifiCorp liable in that class action. Now that PacifiCorp has been found liable for the fires for the entire class, each class member will not have to spend the time and money it would take to prove liability individually. Instead, each class member will only have to prove their individual damages. The Maui Fire Lawsuit seeks to take a similar approach.
This proposed Class Action is also modeled after litigation following the tragic collapse of Champlain Towers South in Miami in 2021. That similarly rare, single-cause catastrophe instantly killed 98 condominium occupants and ultimately leveled a two-tower coastal condominium building. In that case, a Florida court also certified a class action. That case resulted in a nearly $1.2 billion settlement, and the Court approved most of that settlement within one year of the collapse. Following approval of the settlement, the Court managed a procedure in which each class member only had to prove their individual damages to recover their share of the settlement.
Visit our websites, linked below, to learn more about the Maui Fire Lawsuit Legal Team *
*A petition for attorney Alexander Robertson to represent plaintiffs and the putative class pro hac vice in v. Maui Electric Company, Limited has been granted by the Court.
All attorneys at LippSmith LLP are admitted to the Hawai‘i Bar.
*A petition for attorneys Robert Curtis, Kevin Gamarnik, and Luis Saenz to represent plaintiffs and the putative class pro hac vice in Eder v. Maui Electric Company, Limited has been granted by the Court.
