Settlement reached in deadly Marco Polo fire

A confidential settlement has been reached in the 2017 deadly Marco Polo high-rise fire, but even the parties involved in a settlement conference Tuesday did not know how much each individual insurance company and other defendants will have to pay.

One plaintiff, Thomas Schmidt, who owned condominium unit 2603, which suffered $350,000 in damage, said he heard that the total payout from the insurance companies and the Association of Apartment Owners of the Marco Polo Apartments will be around $26 million.

The fire broke out in unit 2602 on July 14, 2017, killing Britt Reller, 54; his mother, 87-year-old Jean Dilley; and neighbors Joann M. Kuwata, 71; and 81-year-old Marilyn Van Gieson, who died Aug. 3 from fire-related complications.

Schmidt knew all of the victims but had no idea who will receive money, or how much.

“I see them every day,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t know where the money’s going to go.”

Attorneys representing other plaintiffs said that they were not allowed to discuss the confidential settlement amounts their clients are expected to receive.

Circuit Judge Dean Ochiai ordered a Honolulu Star- Advertiser reporter out of his courtroom during Tuesday’s settlement conference, which packed Ochiai’s court with attorneys representing various insurance companies and individual plaintiffs.

One of the lead defense attorneys in the case is former state Attorney General David Louie, who told Ochiai that many non­monetary technical issues remain, such as getting signatures on various documents related to the settlement.

Ochiai, who said the case could have been tied up in litigation for years, ordered the defendants to make financial disbursements out of an escrow account by Jan. 15.

“We don’t want to fumble it on the 1-yard line,” Ochiai told the lawyers. “That would be a shame.”

The settlement appears to resolve several lawsuits over the seven-alarm fire at the 568-unit high-rise at 2333 Kapiolani Blvd.

The blaze was one of the worst in modern Honolulu history and took about 130 firefighters more than four hours to extinguish.

The building was built in 1971 before sprinkler systems were required.

The fire caused an estimated $107 million in damage and affected 200 of the building’s units, including 30 that were destroyed, mostly on the 26th through 28th floors.

Investigators ruled in October 2017 that the official cause of the fire was “undetermined” because of “extensive damage” in unit 2602, where the fire broke out.