Legal Consequences: Jury Verdict Could Cost Utility Company Billions After Oregon Wildfires

A jury in the northwestern U.S. state of Oregon on Monday found the electric utility PacifiCorp responsible for causing devastating fires during Labor Day weekend in 2020, ordering the company to pay tens of millions of dollars to 17 homeowners who sued and finding it liable for broader damages that could push the total award into the billions.

The Portland utility is one of several owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway.

The property owners, suing on behalf of a class of thousands of others, alleged that PacifiCorp negligently failed to shut off power to its 600,000 customers during a windstorm, despite warnings from then-Governor Kate Brown’s chief of staff and top fire officials, and that its power lines were responsible for multiple blazes.

There has been no official cause determined for the Labor Day fires, which killed nine people, burned more than 1,875 square miles (4,856 square kilometers) in Oregon, and destroyed upward of 5,000 homes and structures.