Buffett's PacifiCorp suspected of collusion by wildfire victims' law firms

(Reuters) - The law firms leading class-action litigation against PacifiCorp over the 2020 Labor Day weekend wildfires in Oregon want to examine whether the utility owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is colluding with other law firms to reach lowball settlements with fire victims.

In a court filing, Edelson PC, Keller Rohrbach and Stoll Berne said they were blindsided when PacifiCorp and three law firms not involved in the class action jointly announced a $178-million settlement on June 3 with 403 victims of the Beachie Creek and Echo Mountain Complex fires.

The class-action firms said payouts per victim were barely two-thirds of the payouts in an earlier $299-million settlement obtained by other law firms for victims of the Archie Creek fire, and included almost nothing for pain and mental suffering.

By Jonathan Stempel.

Full story at Yahoo News.