PacifiCorp gains legal reprieve
An Oregon appeals court reversed a trial judge's decision on a class‑action suit tied to the 2020 Labor Day wildfires, a ruling that could reduce PacifiCorp’s near‑term damage exposure but doesn't eliminate operational fire risk. (reuters.com) (opb.org).
PacifiCorp just knocked out the legal shortcut that turned Oregon’s 2020 Labor Day fire case into a single giant class action, and that puts more than $1 billion in jury awards into limbo for now. The Oregon Court of Appeals sent the case back to the trial court on April 8, 2026, after finding the jury got a flawed instruction. (reuters.com) The appeals judges did not say PacifiCorp was cleared of starting the fires. They said jurors should not have been told they could assume the trial evidence applied to every member of a class spread across four different wildfires in different parts of Oregon. (opb.org) (reuters.com) That distinction matters because a class action is the courtroom version of putting thousands of claims on one conveyor belt. If that conveyor belt stops, survivors can still sue, but the process gets slower, more fragmented, and more expensive. (reuters.com) (opb.org) The case grew out of the windstorm that hit Oregon over Labor Day weekend in September 2020, when PacifiCorp kept power lines energized despite forecasts for extreme winds and very dry conditions, according to plaintiffs’ evidence. A Multnomah County jury in June 2023 found the utility caused substantial damage in the Santiam Canyon, Echo Mountain Complex, South Obenchain, and 242 fires. (opb.org) Those fires were part of one of the worst wildfire disasters in Oregon history. State and regional accounts say the 2020 Labor Day fires killed 11 people, burned more than 1 million acres, and destroyed more than 3,000 structures across Oregon. (oregon.gov) (fs.usda.gov) The first jury trial in 2023 awarded more than $73 million to 17 plaintiffs, and later trial phases pushed total awards in completed cases to about $1.1 billion. Berkshire Hathaway had warned wildfire exposure could reach into the tens of billions of dollars. (opb.org) (reuters.com) The new ruling could also freeze the assembly line of future damages trials. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that more than 160 trials were scheduled through 2027, and the appeals decision could pause them while the lower court figures out what comes next. (opb.org) PacifiCorp has already been paying out real money even while fighting the class case. In February 2026, it agreed to pay $575 million to settle federal government claims tied to six wildfires in Oregon and California, including four Oregon fires from 2020. (justice.gov) (opb.org) The plaintiffs’ lawyers are calling this a procedural setback, not a defeat on negligence. The appeals court left open the possibility that the trial judge could revisit class treatment or retry the case with corrected instructions. (reuters.com) So PacifiCorp got time, leverage, and a smaller near-term legal target on April 8, 2026. What it did not get was a finding that its power lines were safe, that the 2020 fire claims were baseless, or that wildfire risk for Western utilities has gone away. (opb.org) (reuters.com)
