Hueston Hennigan secured another major win for PacifiCorp in a damages-only bellwether trial arising from the 2020 Oregon Labor Day fires.
This latest result marks the third successful damages trial this year in a high-profile class action involving upwards of 1,500 plaintiffs and $45 billion in claimed damages. These trial victories are central to Hueston Hennigan’s ongoing strategy to achieve a favorable resolution in an extraordinarily high-stakes matter.
The underlying litigation concerns four separate wildfires—known as the Santiam Canyon Fire, Echo Mountain Complex Fire, 242 Fire, and South Obenchain Fire—that swept through Oregon over Labor Day weekend in 2020. Plaintiffs allege that PacifiCorp bore responsibility for the ignition or spread of the fires and seek economic and non-economic damages.
In this most recent bellwether trial, nine plaintiffs sought between approximately $96 million and $225 million in non-economic damages alone. Following a multi-week trial in Portland, the jury awarded just $10.78 million total—less than 5% of the amount claimed. Each of the plaintiffs received an award more than $20 million lower than their pre-trial complaint demand.
This result follows two earlier damages trials in 2025, each of which produced favorable outcomes for PacifiCorp. Across these successive trials, Hueston Hennigan has aggressively deployed and refined a targeted trial strategy—leveraging lessons learned, tailoring cross-examinations, and distilling effective trial themes—to drive down overall damages.
The team includes Alison Plessman, Rajan Trehan, Craig Fligor, Stephanie Xiao, John Cagan, Tyler Dang and Khoa Nguyen.