In a nearly empty courtroom on Tuesday, the chief executive of Pacific Gas & Electric stood in front of a judge and said the same three words 84 times: “Guilty, your honor.”
Family members of the 84 people killed in California’s most devastating wildfire, in 2018, watched on YouTube as the executive, Bill Johnson, said that he had heard their “pain and anguish.”
“I’m here today on behalf of the 23,000 men and women of PG&E to take responsibility for the fire that killed these people,” Mr. Johnson told Judge Michael R. Deems of Butte County Superior Court. “No words from me can ever reduce the magnitude of that devastation,” he added.
It was a rare acknowledgment of corporate wrongdoing that nonetheless seemed inadequate to many families of victims and survivors of the Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise.
PG&E, which had repeatedly failed to maintain a transmission line that broke from a nearly 100-year-old tower even though it cut through a forested and mountainous area known to experience strong winds, pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of illegally setting a fire.
The Camp Fire devastated lives and wreaked billions of dollars in property damage, and left PG&E struggling to survive while it fends off creditors in bankruptcy court, a public furious about the company’s history of accidents and power outages and a governor who at one point threatened a state takeover. The company, California’s biggest utility, is expected to receive a judge’s approval soon for its plan to exit bankruptcy. Under that plan, the company will pay $13.5 billion to people who lost homes and businesses from wildfires started by its equipment, including the Camp Fire.
It is unusual for corporations to plead guilty to felonies and acknowledge that their negligence caused the deaths of dozens of people. What is perhaps even stranger is that this is not the first time in recent years that PG&E has pleaded to or been found guilty of serious crimes. But the relatively small size of PG&E’s financial penalties could rekindle concerns that large corporations often escape appropriate punishment for their actions.
First Published: June 16, 2020, 11:09 p.m.
