A Berkshire Hathaway Inc. energy unit’s woes worsened with a jury’s decision to impose punitive damages over PacifiCorp’s failure to prevent four wildfires that blazed a destructive path in Oregon in 2020, Bloomberg News reported. The addition of punitive damages Wednesday could push the utility’s tab for the Labor Day fires that burned about 2,500 properties to well above $1 billion after jurors in state court in Portland on Monday awarded 17 representatives in the class-action case more than $70 million to compensate for their physical losses and emotional suffering. But the exact amounts to be paid out to all the individual home and business owners will be determined in a later proceeding — and appeals that the company has vowed to pursue may take years to resolve. The jury determined Wednesday that the amount of punitive damages should be one-quarter of whatever is eventually awarded for compensation damages. There was no immediate movement in Berkshire’s stock in after-hours trading.
