HONOLULU (AP) – Lawyers representing victims of a deadly Hawaii wildfire in the United States (US) reached a last-minute deal averting a trial that was scheduled to begin Wednesday over how to split a USD4 billion settlement.
The agreement means victims and survivors will not have to testify, reliving in court details of the massive inferno in Lahaina that killed more than 100 people, destroyed thousands of properties and caused an estimated USD5.5 billion worth of damage.
Before the trial was scheduled, lawyers met in private with Judge Peter Cahill, who later announced that a deal had been reached. Lawyers, who reached the deal late on Tuesday, are expected to file court documents detailing the agreement in a week.
Some victims had been ready to take the witness stand, while others submitted pre-recorded testimony, describing pain made all the more fresh by the recent destruction in Los Angeles.
“Some folks I’m sure will be disappointed, because in their minds this was their time to share their story,” one of the attorneys representing individual plaintiffs Jacob Lowenthal said on Wednesday. “Other folks are going to be relieved because they don’t have to go in and testify.”
One of the individual plaintiffs is Kevin Baclig, whose wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law and brother-in-law were among the 102 people known to have died.
Baclig said in a declaration that if called to testify he would describe how for three agonising days he searched for them – from hotel to hotel, shelter to shelter. “I clung to the fragile hope that maybe they had made it off the island, that they were safe,” he said.
A month and a half went by and the grim reality set in. He went to the Philippines to gather DNA samples from his wife’s close relatives there. The samples matched remains found in the fire.