Edison received 184 claim applications for its newly launched Wildfire Compensation Plan in its first three days, with dozens more in the pipeline, officials said this week. But critics of the plan were not impressed, noting that similar efforts by utilities have fallen short.
By Friday, on top of the 184 applications, another 209 applications had been started, bringing the total to 393 claims in the pipeline, according to SCE spokesperson Scott Johnson.
Jennifer Hasbrouck, general counsel of Southern California Edison, told the California Catastrophe Response Council in a public meeting on Thursday that SCE received dozens of applications for its direct claim program in the first 24 hours after it launched. Hasbrouck said 98 % of the early applicants did not have legal representation.
“We are excited that people are already taking the time to evaluate the program and submit claims,” Johnson said. “Obviously, we appreciate the urgency of many in the community to quickly recover and that’s why we launched the Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program to provide fair and fast payments to community members.”
The final compensation plan, released on Wednesday by Edison, offered claimants who suffered loss in the catastrophic Eaton fire a chance at an early settlement in exchange for waiving their ability to sue.
Edison officials have said that while the company has not been found legally liable for starting the Jan. 7 fire, the utility’s equipment may well have ignited the blaze, which was fueled by a fierce windstorm.
More than 100 lawsuits blame Edison’s subsidiary Southern California Edison’s equipment for igniting the monstrous blaze, which destroyed or damaged more than 9,000 structures and killed 19 people.
The compensation plan, Edison officials said, is an effort to get victims back on their feet faster, while saving money for the state fund that likely will have to cover most of the financial damages.
But attorneys for the plaintiffs and survivors themselves have critiqued the plan, saying it falls short of fully compensating survivors.
Even with amendments to the plan after a public input process, it still doesn’t go far enough toward making survivors whole, shortchanging them for such things as toxic contamination and paying children less than adults for pain and suffering, they said.
Mike Artinian, one of the lawyers suing SCE, was not impressed by the number of early claims submitted to Edison’s compensation program.
Artinian said it was less than 1% of the 25,000 affected individuals.
“It’s unrepresented people, because they are not getting the advice of counsel as to the program,” he said. “Edison is preying on people not represented to minimize the damages.”
Allan Bridgford, who is at the same law firm as Artinian, noted that a lot of people who tested the waters with another program offered by Pacific Gas and Electric for a previous fire ended up dropping out.
Johnson, of SCE, said there are a wide array of scenarios and individual concerns that the plan addresses through two routes: Fast Pay or Detailed Review, and options for homeowners, renters, businesses and single-family households.
City Editor Ryan Carter contributed to this report.