How Much Did Ed Masry Get From the PG&E Settlement?

Ed Masry’s firm, Masry & Vititoe, received about $40 million from the PG&E settlement in the Hinkley groundwater case. That figure was the firm’s share of a roughly $133 million legal-fee pool — 40% of the $333 million paid by Pacific Gas & Electric in 1996 — which Masry split with two co-counsel firms he had brought in to help fund the litigation.¹

How the $40 Million Was Calculated

The case, Anderson v. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., was filed in 1993 on behalf of more than 600 residents of Hinkley, California, who alleged that chromium-tainted wastewater from a PG&E compressor station had contaminated their groundwater. Rather than proceed to public trial, the parties used binding arbitration before retired judges. After the first 39 plaintiffs were awarded $121 million, PG&E settled the remaining claims for $333 million to avoid further arbitration that lawyers estimated could have reached $400 million.²

The three plaintiffs’ firms had a 40% contingency arrangement, producing roughly $133 million in fees. Clients were charged another $10 million in litigation expenses that were never publicly itemized, leaving about $196 million for the 648 plaintiffs.³

Of that $133 million fee pool, the Los Angeles Times reported Masry & Vititoe’s share at about $40 million.¹ The remaining $93 million or so went to firms led by Thomas Girardi and Walter Lack. The exact division between those two co-counsel firms was never publicly disclosed, and because the case was resolved through private arbitration rather than open court, no full public accounting of the settlement was ever filed.

What Masry Had Sunk Into the Case

The $40 million came after years of heavy personal financial risk. Masry told the Los Angeles Business Journal he had spent about $10 million of his own money on the litigation and that the case “nearly went broke” the firm. He and his wife had exhausted their life savings, put trust deeds on their home, and sold their retirement property in Rancho Mirage to keep the case funded. He said that if the case had been lost, he would have had “nothing after 60 years of hard work.”⁴

It was that financial squeeze that pushed Masry to bring in Girardi and Lack, which is why the fee pool was split three ways rather than kept entirely by his firm.

The Bonus to Erin Brockovich

From his share of the settlement, Masry paid Erin Brockovich, the legal clerk whose investigation had built the case against PG&E, a bonus of $2.5 million.⁵

What the Plaintiffs Received by Comparison

The $196 million left for plaintiffs would have averaged roughly $300,000 each if divided evenly among 648 people, but individual payouts varied widely and many residents said theirs came in far below that. One woman whose husband had 17 throat tumors removed received $80,000. An elderly resident received $25,000. Others reported $50,000 or $100,000. Bakersfield attorney Mike Dolan, who represented 81 dissatisfied residents, said his clients’ average payout was $152,000 and threatened to sue for a full accounting of the settlement funds.³

Dolan also raised a specific fee question: California generally caps contingency fees on minors’ awards at 25%, but judges in this case had allowed the firms to take one-third.³ In June 1998, Girardi, Lack, and Masry sued Dolan for slander and business interference, dropped that suit within weeks, and Masry filed a second suit against him in August 1998, which he abandoned by March 1999 after Dolan attempted to depose him in open court. The firms later refunded money to minors who had turned 18 during the arbitration, attributing the overcharges to “computer errors” and issuing checks covering the difference between the 33⅓% and 40% fees, totaling a few hundred thousand dollars.⁶

What Happened to the Money Afterward

The wealth Masry took from the PG&E settlement did not sit undisturbed. Before his death on December 5, 2005, Masry revoked his interest in a joint trust he shared with his second wife, Joette, and transferred his assets into a new trust controlled by his children from his first marriage. Joette Masry challenged the change, but a 2008 appellate ruling upheld the new trust. Her attorney said the arrangement “severely limits the income she gets for her maintenance and support.”⁷

The estate fights spilled into the firm. Masry & Vititoe filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 24, 2009, citing a “slew of expensive estate litigation” that had cost about $3 million to defend and drained its cash flow.⁸ In 2021, the Masry estate alleged that Tom Girardi, by then disgraced and disbarred, had failed to turn over settlement funds from nine legal matters the two had worked on together.⁹

1
Los Angeles Times. Edward L. Masry Dies at 73
2
Los Angeles Times. PG&E to Pay $333 Million to Settle Claims
3
The Guardian. The Real Erin Brockovich
4
Los Angeles Business Journal. Interview With Edward L. Masry
5
People. Where Is Erin Brockovich Now
6
Salon. Erin Brockovich’s Biggest Coverup
7
The Acorn. Widow of Ed Masry Loses Court Case Involving His Estate
8
ABA Journal. Masry Estate Disputes Help Drive Erin Brockovich Firm Into Chapter 11
9
National Law Journal. The Estate of Ed Masry Says Tom Girardi Owes Them Money