PG&E shares drop in wake of defeat in liabilities case
Shares of utility giant PG&E Corp. fell after its attempt at escaping a California policy that saddled it with billions of dollars in liabilities and pushed it into bankruptcy failed.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali on Wednesday sided with wildfire victims, who said PG&E is subject to a legal doctrine known as inverse condemnation, which holds utilities liable for covering the costs of blazes linked to their equipment, regardless of whether they were negligent.
PG&E shares slipped as much as 4.9 percent to $7.18 in New York on Friday.
PG&E blamed inverse condemnation for its downfall. California’s largest utility filed for Chapter 11 while facing an estimated $30 billion in liabilities tied to wildfires that its power lines were blamed for igniting in 2017 and 2018. The state is one of the few places — if not the only one — in the world that holds its power companies liable in this way.
The policy has been cited as one reason Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy and other potential PG&E buyers aren’t making bids. PG&E’s former CEO, Geisha Williams, spent months fighting the doctrine to no avail and was ultimately ousted just weeks before the company filed for bankruptcy.
In deciding that PG&E is subject to inverse condemnation, Montali determined that the doctrine isn’t limited to public agencies and said the California Supreme Court would “reach the same conclusion.”
At stake is the bill for the second-most destructive fire in California history, the 2017 Tubbs fire, which killed more than 20 people and destroyed at least 5,600 buildings. Claims could top $10 billion, “even though CalFire determined that PG&E equipment did not ignite the blaze,” the company argued in court papers.
PG&E had said inverse condemnation was originally developed with government-run agencies in mind — a means for them to raise rates or taxes and spread around the costs of a disaster caused by the failure of a water line, for example. Because PG&E doesn’t levy taxes and can’t hike rates without regulatory approval, the company said, the doctrine shouldn’t apply to its case.
But Montali said in his decision that “since at least 1894, Californian courts have not limited the application of inverse condemnation to public entities.” He also noted that California’s Legislature has refused PG&E’s pleas to restrict the policy and said he has no reason to believe that the state’s Supreme Court would “step up and do it.”
He did, however, say the doctrine doesn’t extend beyond property damage and is subject to some limitations.
Montali’s ruling comes as the company and a committee representing wildfire victims are getting ready for a trial that will decide how much PG&E must pay to compensate residents and businesses hurt by fires traced to its equipment.
Even with a victory, PG&E would’ve still been on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in wildfire damages that critics claim were caused by negligence. The ruling, “which, as expected, went against PG&E, keeps negotiations with wildfire claimants as the main hurdle to a bankruptcy exit,” Bloomberg Intelligence senior utilities analyst Kit Konolige wrote.
The victims committee argued that PG&E must be subject to the inverse condemnation doctrine because California courts have consistently ruled that it applies even to investor-owned utilities.
State officials said in a report this year that inverse condemnation increases the danger that other utilities will also go bankrupt. But when lawmakers had the chance to eliminate the doctrine, they refused to rewrite the law.
The case is PG&E Corp. 19-bk-30088, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Northern District of California (San Francisco)