by Logan Finney, Idaho Reports
The House State Affairs Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would help protect electric utility companies from civil lawsuits related to wildfire damages.
Senate Bill 1183 would establish a standard of care in state law under which electric companies would not be held liable for wildfire-related damages if they have followed their individual wildfire mitigation plans, as approved by the state’s Public Utilities Commission.
Reps. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, and John Shirts, R-Weiser, are carrying it in the House. The Senate passed the bill 24-11 earlier this week.
Boyle referenced massive blazes in California that could bankrupt their regional power utilities, as well as 2020 Oregon fires where juries awarded millions of dollars in damages.
“This is the kind of stuff we’re trying to prevent, so that our rate payers don’t have to pay it, and our little co-ops don’t go bankrupt,” Boyle said.
Lawmakers drafted this version of the legislation as a stakeholder compromise, after a previous version with a different threshold for liability did not advance out of the Senate earlier this session.
“If this would limit medical expenses, I would not be supporting this bill,” Shirts said. “It’s not to limit people from suing when a power company does something wrong. If they do something wrong, you can still sue them, as you should.”
The bill references specific sections of code about damages for certain kinds of liability, which has left some lawmakers concerned it would not cover injury to people or deaths.
Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, made an unsuccessful attempt to amend the bill.
“I used to do personal injury suits, and also wrongful death suits,” Skaug said. “This gives me pause for any client that would have come to me to file issue on the lawsuit.”
Bill supporters argue those are only references to existing statutory limits on economic damages, and they say the bill would not preclude individuals from seeking other kinds of damages.
“This bill before you is a civil action, and includes wrongful deaths,” Shirts said. “If we go and try to change it, we could be unintentionally excluding other people that we don’t want to. We want to keep this as broad as we can, to give people that right of action.”
The committee approved the bill as written and sent it to the House for consideration.
Logan Finney | Producer
Logan Finney is a North Idaho native with a passion for media production and boring government meetings. He grew up skiing, hunting and hiking in the mountains of Bonner County and has maintained a lifelong interest in the state’s geography, history and politics. Logan joined the Idaho Reports team in 2020 as a legislative session intern and stayed to cover the COVID-19 pandemic. He was hired as an associate producer in 2021 and they haven’t been able to get rid of him since.