Hawaii wildfire victims spared from testifying after last-minute deal over $4B settlement

abcnews.go.com:

Lawyers representing victims of a deadly Hawaii wildfire have reached a last-minute deal, averting a trial to determine how to split a $4 billion settlement

HONOLULU — Lawyers representing victims of a deadly Hawaii wildfire reached a last-minute deal averting a trial Wednesday to determine how to split a $4 billion settlement.

The agreement means victims and survivors will not have to testify, reliving in court details of the massive inferno in Lahaina that killed more than 100 people, destroyed thousands of properties and caused an estimated $5.5 billion worth of damage.

Before the trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday morning, lawyers met in private with Judge Peter Cahill, who later announced that a deal had been reached late Tuesday. Lawyers are expected to file court documents detailing the agreement in a week.

Some victims had been ready to take the witness stand, while others submitted pre-recorded testimony, describing pain made all the more fresh by the recent destruction in Los Angeles.

“Some folks I’m sure will be disappointed, because in their minds this was their time to share their story,” Jacob Lowenthal, one of the attorneys representing individual plaintiffs, said Wednesday. “Other folks are going to be relieved because they don’t have to go in and testify.”

One of the individual plaintiffs is Kevin Baclig, whose wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law and brother-in-law were among the 102 people known to have died.

Baclig said in a declaration that if called to testify he would describe how for three agonizing days he searched for them — from hotel to hotel, shelter to shelter. “I clung to the fragile hope that maybe they had made it off the island, that they were safe,” he said.

A month and a half