Lawsuits decry delayed fire compensation payments
24 plaintiffs claim FEMA not complying with its own rules
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is facing yet more litigation related to its handling of compensation claims in the aftermath of the largest fire in New Mexico’s history.
In recent days, two lawsuits by 24 people affected by the Hermits Peak/ Calf Canyon Fire were filed in U.S. District
Court in New Mexico. The lawsuits allege the agency has violated the terms of federal law and failed to comply with its own rules due to its delays in processing victims’ compensation claims.
The fire — which started in April 2022 with two prescribed burns ignited by the U.S. Forest Service — burned more than 340,000 acres of forest and hundreds of homes in Northern New Mexico.
Although federal legislation requires the agency to issue a determination on the amount of compensation to be paid to victims within 180 days of the submission of a claim, both lawsuits allege the agency has “unilaterally” decided to interpret the law to instead allow itself 180 days from its own acknowledgment of each claim to make a determination.
The 24 plaintiffs allege the federal agency has not even complied with its own “improper interpretation” of the law in their claims. None of the 24 has received a response from the agency regarding a claim for compensation, the lawsuits say, even though more than 180 days have passed since FEMA acknowledged each claim.
The agency acknowledged each victim’s claim in June, the lawsuits state. FEMA officials could not be reached Saturday to respond to the new lawsuits.
Both complaints were filed by a team of Albuquerque-based attorneys from the law firm Singleton Schreiber, led by former state Auditor Brian Colón.
“A community that was traumatized by these fires is being re-traumatized by FEMA’s negligence,” Colón said during an interview Saturday. “They’ve been an utter, abject failure time and time again, and we will continue to file these suits until FEMA does its job.”
Congress allocated nearly $4 billion to compensation for the historic fire in the Hermits Peak Fire Assistance Act, signed by President Joe Biden in September 2022, and subsequent legislation passed in the following months.
The bill designated FEMA to administer the funds, stating, “not later than 180 days after the date on which a claim is submitted under this Act, the Administrator shall determine and fix the amount, if any, to be paid for the claim.”
But Aug. 29, the agency finalized its
rules and regulations for fire compensation claims, publishing in the Federal Register that it would begin each 180-day count from the date the agency acknowledges receipt of each claim.
The agency “found a way to delay paying the claims by misinterpreting the law,” Colón said, adding it took months to recognize claims and is now failing to respond even within its own 180-day timeline.
The lawsuits filed by Colón’s firm allege the agency’s rule results in “ethical violations of FEMA’s requirements to process the claims fairly and impartially.”
The agency’s rules allow it “to delay payments indefinitely and arbitrarily,” the lawsuits allege.
A week before the lawsuits were filed, FEMA’s Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon claims office director, Angela Gladwell, held a news conference at the Santa Fe office, saying the agency has been managing its timelines for compensation to fire victims “very well so far.”
The 180 days, Gladwell said, is counted “from the moment we formally acknowledge a notice of loss until we make a determination of how much we are offering in payment.
“Within that timeframe, the claimants have 150 days to be able to submit their claim, and we have the rest of the time to come to a determination of payment,” Gladwell said. “We recognize there are large numbers of claims that will be meeting that time frame in the coming months and we are staffing up and resourcing appropriately so that we can be able to support that.”
Gladwell is listed as a defendant in both of the lawsuits, which seek monetary damages, sanctions, attorneys’ fees and declaratory and injunctive relief from FEMA, claiming the fire victims “have incurred and continue to incur significant loss and damage as a result of FEMA’s failures and inactions.”
The recent complaints are the latest litigation against the agency over its response to the historic fire.
Two other pending lawsuits against FEMA were filed in October by residents in Mora — a mountain town that was among the communities hardest hit by the fire.
One alleged violations of public records law, while another says the agency’s officials were pressuring claimants to accept settlements without consulting with their lawyers.