Maui landowners sued over Lahaina disaster

The state of Hawaii and major local landowner Kamehameha Schools are two new entities being sued over alleged liability in the deadly Aug. 8 Lahaina wildfire.

Harold Dennis Wells, whose daughter Rebecca “Becky” Rans died in the disaster, filed the lawsuit Monday evening in state Circuit Court on Maui against the two entities, Maui County and Hawaiian Electric.

Attorneys for the plaintiff said the complaint is the first one filed in state court to allege that landowners who had dry, poorly managed brush on their property that fed flames are responsible for the wildfire that killed at least 115 people.

Bridget Morgan-Bickerton, an attorney helping represent Wells at Honolulu law firm Bickerton Law Group, said all the defendants named in the new case knew about a 2014 Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization report pointing to non-­native grass largely on former sugar cane plantation lands being extremely fire-prone.

“Fire follows fuel, and this grass was fuel for the fire, ” she said Tuesday at a news conference.

Anne Andrews, an attorney at Newport Beach, Calif., law firm Andrews &Thornton also representing Wells, called the dry brush a “monster” waiting to ignite and spread.

“The management of that heavy, heavy non-native grass was so combustible, it was almost like a gasoline tank that was sitting next to the family’s property,” Andrews said.

The complaint alleges that Kamehameha Schools, long known as Bishop Estate, along with Maui County and the state, knew that not keeping vegetation in check on their land would expose Lahaina and its citizens to increased wildfire risk, especially in light of strong winds generated partly by Hurricane Lane that contributed to wildfires in 2018 on Maui.

“As large landowners, Bishop, Maui County, and state, owed a duty to maintain their property to prevent spread of fire to adjacent properties,” the lawsuit states. “They had participated in a study on how critical it was to maintain vegetation on their land to avoid the rapid spread of dangerous wildfire in high wind conditions. And yet they did not do the minimal vegetation management that could have abated the Lahaina Fire.

“Had they done so,” the complaint continued, “the Lahaina Fire would have slowed and been contained, and Rebecca Rans would not have been forced to flee with mere moments to escape.”

Rans, 57, a mother of three adult children who was a 20-year Maui resident known to many as Becky Wells, died several blocks from her home behind a Subway restaurant building with her partner, Douglas Gloege, 59.

Kathleen Hennricks, Rans’ sister, said the lawsuit cannot bring back Rans, but can deliver justice for her sister and other people affected by the fire while also possibly preventing a similar tragedy in the future.

“We don’t ever want this to happen to somebody else,” she said.

According to the lawsuit, Kamehameha Schools owns several large land parcels totaling at least 1,137 acres that were in the path of and facilitated the fire that destroyed Rans’ home at 390 Paeohi St. and cut off routes of escape.

Sterling Wong — a spokesperson for the Indigenous educational institution that has $15 billion in assets and is Hawaii’s largest private landowner — declined to comment on the lawsuit given that many aspects of the fires that swept over parts of Maui on Aug. 8 are still under investigation.

“At this time, our hearts are with all affected by the Maui fires and their ‘ohana,” Wong said in a statement. “We are committed to restoring our Native Hawaiian people and culture through education, which includes stewarding and uplifting the health and resiliency of our ‘aina (lands) and Native communities.”

In response to the state being named as a defendant in the lawsuit, the Department of the Attorney General said in a statement that it was just served with the complaint Tuesday morning and was reviewing it.

The complaint alleges that the state owns land east and northeast of Rans’ residence that contributed to its destruction and also negatively affected escape routes for Rans and others fleeing the fire.

Maui County owns several parcels of land in the area that contributed to the same situation, according to the lawsuit.

In addition, the complaint alleges that county officials were ill prepared for the Lahaina fire and did not sound disaster warning sirens because they feared residents would have fled toward the mountains, into the oncoming fire, assuming that a tsunami was on the way.

“Of course, such logic cannot stand since residents exiting their homes and looking towards the mountains would have been overwhelmed with the sight of the approaching fire and smoke,” the lawsuit said. “They would have had more time to flee. More time would have saved the life of Rebecca Rans who tragically did not get out in enough time.”

The complaint also said cellphone alerts used by the county were insufficient because many cell towers were down.

A county representative declined to comment Tuesday because legal guidance had not yet been received.

To date, most of the 15 or so lawsuits filed in state court on behalf of people who lost homes, businesses or lives to the fire have been directed against only Hawaiian Electric. Many of the company’s power lines were blown down in wind gusts over 60 miles per hour, and fallen lines in one area recorded on video are suspected to have started the Lahaina fire.

Hawaiian Electric’s policy is not to comment on pending litigation, but the company has previously said that the fire shown on the video was declared extinguished after expansion and containment, and that a different fire later on Aug. 8 with an unknown cause spread to engulf and destroy nearly all of Lahaina.

No official cause has been determined yet for the blaze that consumed an estimated 2,170 acres, caused an estimated $5.6 billion in damage and is the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.

Maui County, which has been named as a defendant in a couple of the earlier lawsuits, also has sued Hawaiian Electric and contends that the initial fire referenced by the utility company flared up later and was the source of the disaster.

Andrews, co-counsel in the lawsuit that names property owners as defendants, said such cases are not unprecedented. She said that her firm has ongoing litigation in California against landowners for their alleged liability in past fires there.