Survivors of one of the worst bushfires in Australian history have won a payout of almost A$500m, in the country's largest class action settlement.
Some 10,000 plaintiffs sued a power company for negligence over the fire.
The case centred on the most pernicious blaze on Black Saturday, on 7 February 2009, when wildfires swept across several areas in the state of Victoria.
This fire, in the Kilmore East area north of Melbourne, killed 119 people and eradicated more than 1,000 homes.
A 2009 Royal Commission found that the fire commenced when an electricity line failed between two poles. Contact between the live conductor and a cable stay fortifying the pole caused arcing that ignited vegetation, the report verbalized.
The plaintiffs incriminated SP AusNet of failing to adequately maintain its power lines.
They additionally sued Utility Services Corporation Ltd, the line maintenance contractor, and the Department of Sustainability and Environment for inadequate obviation measures.
The group were awarded a settlement of A$497.4m ($467m, £274m), of which SP AusNet will pay A$378.6m.
The settlement represented "a quantification of equity and some authentic emolument to avail ease the financial encumbrance of their suffering," lawyer for the plaintiffs Andrew Watson verbally expressed.
SP AusNet verbalized the settlement came without an admission of liability by the company.
"SP AusNet's position has been, and perpetuates to be, that the conductor which broke and which initiated the fire was damaged by lightning, compromising its fail-safety design in a manner which was undetectable at the time," it verbalized in a verbalization.
"It is a tragedy that the conductor eventually failed on one of the worst days imaginable."
A total of 173 people died in the Black Saturday fires.
