Gray•Duffy negotiates settlement of multi-million dollar power outage claim.

January 2017

Overview

Richard M. Williams of Gray•Duffy’s Redwood City office successfully represented Summit Crane Inc., headquartered in Vacaville, CA, in negotiating the settlement of a massive electrical power outage claim.

Discussion

Western Digital v. Summit Crane, Inc. On August 14, 2015, a 90-ton mobile crane being driven on a construction site at the Tesla Motors production facility in Fremont, CA, made contact with and brought down a 120-KV PG&E power line that supplied electricity to the Western Digital Wafer Fabrication Facility in Fremont. As a result of the ensuing power outage, Western Digital’s facility was shut down for nearly two days, resulting in lost production and damage to the manufacturing equipment and inventory in excess of $4,000,000. After substantial negotiation with Western Digital representatives and counsel, and a very thorough analysis by a forensic accounting team retained by Gray•Duffy, the matter was settled before the filing of a lawsuit, for the sum of $1,352,000. Substantial monetary savings to both Gray•Duffy’s client, and its liability insurer, were the result of the pre-litigation negotiations and settlement.

Please Note: This article is necessarily general in nature and is not a substitute for legal advice with respect to any particular case. Readers should consult with an attorney before taking any action affecting their interests.