Marshall fire victims who joined the massive lawsuit against Xcel Energy are expected to receive their portion of the $640 million settlement before the end of the year, but the amount of money each plaintiff receives will not be publicly disclosed.
Xcel and plaintiffs’ attorneys announced the settlement Wednesday, just one day before the start of jury selection in a two-month civil trial to determine blame for the 2021 wildfire that killed two people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Boulder County.
The full terms of the settlement will not be released, though private corporations involved in the litigation may need to disclose their payouts to shareholders. The individual homeowners who participated in the lawsuit will be required to sign nondisclosure agreements, said Paul Starita, a lawyer at Singleton Schreiber, one of the firms that represented homeowners.
Teleport Communications America and Qwest Corporation, two co-defendants in the lawsuit, will contribute an undisclosed amount toward the settlement total.
Not every person or company among the more than 4,000 plaintiffs will receive the same amount of money, Stirata said. The amount each receives will depend on the level of damages.
Plaintiffs whose houses burned to the ground would be in line to receive more money than people who suffered smoke and soot damage, he said. People who rented housing or owned rental properties were also parties to the lawsuit, as were some people who only evacuated and sued for the nuisance. And claims involving deaths would be compensated with a higher amount.
Attorneys figured out months ago what percentage of any settlement or jury award each plaintiff should receive, because those dollar figures were part of the mediation and settlement negotiations, Stirata said.
“You add up all of those figures and the defendant pays you that lump sum and you give that to your clients,” he said. “It’s a fair settlement.”
Payments should start being distributed within 60 days and be complete by the end of the year, Stirata said.
The lawyers will also get a cut of the settlement as their payment for taking on the case. Each firm sets its own fee for the clients it accepted, Sirata said. He declined to reveal what percentage Singleton Schreiber will receive.
A large chunk of the settlement will go to the 200 insurance companies that sued Xcel to compensate for the massive property damage claims they paid in the fire’s aftermath. In a legal filing ahead of the trial, those insurance firms said they suffered $1.7 billion in losses. It is not known what settlement amount they agreed to.
The Target Corporation was a plaintiff as well because its store in Superior was closed for months due to fire damage. The city of Boulder, Boulder County and the Boulder Valley School District were also plaintiffs.
The Dec. 30, 2021, Marshall fire was the most devastating wildfire in Colorado history, costing more than $2 billion in damages.
The fire ignited first on the property of the Twelve Tribes religious cult, which has a compound on Eldorado Drive, near the Marshall Mesa Open Space. That ignition was caused by smoldering embers left over from a Dec. 24 burn-pit fire on the property.
The Mountain View Fire Protection District and Boulder County sheriff’s deputies responded when neighbors reported the fire, and the cult members extinguished the blaze by burying it with dirt. However, strong winds on Dec. 30 uncovered the smoldering embers and sent them flying into dry grasses and brush.
A second ignition occurred about an hour and 20 minutes later when wires and electrical equipment from an Xcel utility pole became unmoored, clashed into each other and threw sparks into dry grass at the trailhead, an investigation by the Boulder County district attorney and sheriff’s offices found.
In the settlement, Xcel did not admit fault or negligence for the fire and continues to deny that its equipment ignited the Marshall fire.
The Twelve Tribes was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Stirata said that’s because “we didn’t see them as an entity you could recover (money) from.” The cult also would have been able to claim it was given the OK by the fire department on Dec. 24, he said.
The various lawyers will appear before Judge Christopher Zenisek on Nov. 5 to provide an update on the settlement.
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