Clarification on PG&E settlement story

I write to clarify a single sentence in the article that appears to have been misunderstood by, or which has created confusion for, the three attorneys who wrote a response printed by the Daily Journal on November 1. The sentence in question reads as follows: "The global settlement would resolve all claims for about $8 billion as opposed to the $15 to $20 billion Singleton said plaintiffs could get if they prevailed in court."

In their response, the three attorneys inaccurately assumed that I told the reporter that PG&E had made an offer of $8 billion. This is not correct. I specifically told the reporter that no offer had been made.

To be fair, the sentence cited by the attorneys in their responsive article does not explicitly say that any offer had been made, nor does it contain any direct quotes from me (all direct quotes in the article attributed to me are accurate). However, the sentence in question does create the impression that an offer had been made. Accordingly, given the statements made in the responsive article, I am writing to explicitly state that I did not, at any time, state that an offer of settlement was made by PG&E.

My group is opposed to a global settlement of the individual plaintiffs' claims on all fires for a fixed amount. We believe that these cases should be resolved individually so that each plaintiff will have the opportunity to either accept a specific settlement amount or proceed to trial. In my view, a global settlement combining all fires for a fixed amount would be a disservice to our clients, since it would leave the plaintiffs in a position where they would have to fight with one another over an insufficient pot of money.