Reporter for The Canyon Weekly
A Portland judge has yet to rule on whether or not 1,500 claims in a class action wildfire lawsuit against PacifiCorp should be thrown out as “sham” filings following a recent hearing on the matter.
On Sept. 13, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Steffan Alexander said he needed more time to consider the arguments submitted by both parties in James et al vs. PacifiCorp.
Alexander took the matter under advisement and set a status check hearing for Sept. 20. As of press time a decision by the judge had not been published.
Alexander also delayed a decision on how class members would be selected for a series of damages trials scheduled for next year, saying the other matter could impact this process.
The Sept. 13 hearing was held to argue a motion to strike filed by PacifiCorp May 10 in response to 1,000 individual claims submitted by plaintiffs in a mass filing on April 29. Since then 536 more claims have been submitted across four additional filings, most recently on Sep. 11.
During the Sept. 13 hearing, PacifiCorp counsel said the earlier short-form complaints were authorized by a court order describing guidelines for the prior damages trial. They said the court has not yet authorized short-form complaints for subsequent trials.
In the event Alexander denied the motion to strike, PacifiCorp filed a separate motion the day of the hearing to make the pending claims more definite and certain.
This motion raised the same concerns about a lack of differentiation between claims in a class with a broad range of losses.
Instead of asking that the claims be thrown out, this motion asks the court to order that claims be modified to make the differences between individual losses more apparent.
During the hearing PacifiCorp counsel requested that a hearing on the new motion be set at the court’s earliest convenience. As of press time a hearing dedicated to the motion had not been scheduled.
