22/10/2011
TWO class action compensation cases for about 50 victims of Black Saturday fires at Weerite and Coleraine have been listed for Supreme Court sittings next year.
Each of the cases, alleging fault by Powercor, could take at least four weeks to settle.
A mediation hearing on the Coleraine blaze, which left one victim with serious burns and destroyed fences, pasture, a house and farm equipment and buildings, will be held in December at Hamilton to determine if the allocated April court sitting should proceed.
Early next year another mediation hearing will be held to determine if the Weerite case will start in a late May court sitting in Warrnambool to consider destruction of about 14 kilometres of fencing, 106 hectares of pasture, 750 hay bales, trees and damage to buildings and crops in the February 7, 2009 fires.
Warrnambool-based legal firm Maddens Lawyers, which is conducting the compensation action, recently reached a landmark settlement in Horsham after a five-week hearing before Justice Jack Forrest.
Up to 300 victims of the Wimmera blaze, which swept through Horsham Golf Club, industrial estate and residential areas, could receive compensation payments by Christmas.
The trial was adjourned on October 7 and settlement details are to be considered for approval by another judge.
It was the first bushfire class action settlement in Australia.
The Weerite claims are being launched on behalf of Pomborneit farmer Terry Place and other landowners who are claiming negligence by Powercor after live conductors clashed on power lines north of the Princes Highway, causing sparks to fall on dry grass.
The subsequent blaze spread over a wide area of farmland.
The Coleraine action is on behalf of Tracey Joanne Perry, Terry Raymond Sagar and others against Powercor after a tie wire holding a conductor snapped, resulting in an insulator dropping and discharging electricity to a nearby tree, causing a fire.
Maddens is also leading action by plaintiffs for the Beechworth district bushfires, with a mediation hearing in December and a trial listing for Wodonga in February.