PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon jury has ordered PacifiCorp to pay $305 million to 16 victims of the state's devastating 2020 wildfires in the latest verdict in a class-action lawsuit against the utility that includes thousands of members.
PacifiCorp has now been ordered by juries to pay over $1 billion in damages to members of the class following a 2023 trial in which it was found liable for negligently failing to cut power during a windstorm despite warnings from top fire officials.
PacifiCorp’s appeal of the case is making its way through state court. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 class members have cases set for trial in 2026 and 2027.
The 2020 Labor Day weekend fires were among the worst natural disasters in Oregon’s history. They killed 11 people, burned more than 1,560 square miles (4,040 square kilometers) and destroyed thousands of homes.
The amounts awarded by a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury Wednesday were to 16 victims of the Santiam Canyon fire in northwest Oregon.
“This verdict is a meaningful acknowledgment of the devastation they’ve endured and reaffirms the irreversible losses they’ve suffered as a result of the fires,” Shawn Rabin, who led the trial team representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
In an emailed statement, PacifiCorp said the verdict was an “irresponsible outcome related to damages caused by a fire that PacifiCorp did not start or contribute to as determined by the Oregon Department of Forestry.”
"This is why we have been and will continue to challenge these verdicts," the utility said.
In a report released last year, the Oregon Department of Forestry found that 12 of 19 fires in Santiam Canyon in September 2020 were caused by embers from another fire. The other seven fires were caused by downed power lines but were determined not to have contributed to the spread of large fires in the canyon, and they were suppressed by residents or firefighters, according to the report.
Plaintiffs' attorneys have described the report as flawed and missing evidence.
Separately, PacifiCorp has agreed to pay over $2 billion to settle claims stemming from a series of lawsuits it has faced over the 2020 blazes, including $575 million to the federal government for wildfire damages on federal land in Oregon and California.
FILE - Chairs stand at a post office in the aftermath of the Santiam Fire, in Gates, Ore., Sept 9, 2020. (Mark Ylen/Albany Democrat-Herald via AP, File)
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Austin Smotherman's one previous PGA Tour appearance at the tournament now known as the Cognizant Classic was in 2022 and it was unmemorable: He shot 70 in the first round, 76 in the second and missed the cut by four shots.
Given that, he didn't see a round like Thursday's coming.
Smotherman matched the best score of his career, shooting a 9-under 62 to take a one-stroke lead over Nico Echavarria after the first round.
Smotherman became the seventh player to shoot 62 or better at PGA National in this event. The others: Jake Knapp (59 in round 1, 2025), Matt Jones (61 in round 1, 2021), Brian Harman (61 in round 2, 2012), Chris Kirk (62 in round 2, 2023), Brandon Hagy (62 in round 2, 2021) and Tiger Woods (62 in the final round, 2012).
“It was a pretty easy round,” Smotherman said, “on a golf course that shouldn’t be this easy.”
And that is a talking point at PGA National.
The course is overseeded, which means rye has been added to the Bermuda grass. The advantages are many, including the grass looks greener, which means PGA National looks prettier on television. Not just that, but the course plays softer as well.
Put in simplest terms, an overseeded PGA National isn’t as daunting to get around as the PGA National of a few years ago. Mark Wilson won in the tournament’s first year on this course with a score of 5 under, and 11 of the first 14 winners at PGA National finished less than 10-under par. The winning scores in the last five years: 12 under, 10 under, 14 under, 17 under and 19 under.
“This is a really good golf course,” said Billy Horschel, who shot a 2-under 69 on Thursday. “It’s a very fair golf course. When it blows hard, it’s a challenge, and when it’s sort of benign like it is today, it’s gettable. A few years ago the rough was longer and then they started cutting it down and then they overseeded the golf course.
“Listen, I think the Tour gets a bad rap, and it’s not anything against the owners of PGA National. I understand where they would want to overseed. People want it to look pretty on TV, and if it looks pretty on TV, maybe people will want to come play it.”
Horschel created a bit of a buzz on Wednesday when he weighed in on X to discuss the overseeding issue. On Thursday, he didn’t rant and rave — but made clear that he preferred the PGA National that had some more teeth than this version.
“I understand we are using a golf course that we don’t own a lot of times, and sometimes we’re at the discretion of what the owner wants to do,” Horschel said. “Obviously we give our opinion of what we think is best for the golf course and how they want to set it up and challenge it, but also, the owners have a say in it. This isn’t just PGA National; it goes to a lot of courses that we play throughout the years.”
Smotherman — fueled by six consecutive birdies on holes 7 through 12 — tapped in for a birdie on the par-5 finishing hole for the second 62 in his PGA Tour career. He also shot 62 in the first round of the Bermuda Championship in October 2022.
He held a first-round lead once before this week, at the 2023 Mexico Open, and hasn’t won any of his first 81 starts on tour. He's also playing without a line on the ball this week, seeing what that does for his putting.
So far, so good.
“Trying to just be a little bit more freeing with the stroke, be an artist on the greens, see the line, kind of let it just be external, look at the hole, see where I want it to go in and just trust that I’m pretty good at just aiming in the general vicinity that needs to happen,” Smotherman said. “Then from there, just letting good speed take over, and hopefully the hole gets in the way.”
Echavarria shot 63 in the morning half of the draw. No one else who started in the morning shot better than 67, with Taylor Moore and Jackson Suber coming in with those scores. Potus Nyholm, Kristoffer Reitan, Daniel Berger and Kevin Roy had 67s in the afternoon, but nobody got close to Smotherman.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Billy Horschel hits from the 17th tee at Spyglass Hill Golf Course during the second round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
