The drinking water at Camp Lejeune was found to be contaminated by industrial solvents and other chemicals from the 1950s through the 80s, and the CDC found more than a million people may have been exposed.
The Camp Lejeune Justice Act opened a two-year window, allowing those sickened to sue the federal government for damages, and two North Carolina lawmakers said the act needs some improvement.
The water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune was contaminated for decades, and the federal government and the U.S. military kept it under wraps for years. Marines, their families, base contractors and others were served drinking water from the toxic wells for several years after water testing confirmed it was laden with harmful chemicals.
Congresswoman Deborah Ross introduced a bill in early summer that would make adjustments to the Camp Lejeune Justice Act – the original legislation that paved the way for people sickened by the toxic water aboard the base to sue for damages.
The Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act has strong bipartisan support in both chambers, and is cosponsored by Congressmen Dr. Greg Murphy and Don Davis and many other North Carolina lawmakers.
Ross said the first fix the proposal makes is to change the way cases can be heard, opening them up to more federal courts.
“There was only one court in the entire country, one federal District Court that could hear the cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina because that's where Camp Lejeune is,” she explained. “There are more than 400,000 cases waiting to be heard in that one location. The bill adds five additional places where you can sue.”
“When you've got already all the criminal and civil cases and then you add 400,000 cases, you know, people are going to die before they get justice.”
Congressman Murphy represents North Carolina's 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, which includes the Jacksonville area where Camp Lejeune is located. He also believes expanding the number of locations will allow cases to be heard more quickly.
“We clarify where they can be tried,” he said. “It's going to be in North Carolina and South Carolina. It limits attorneys’ fees, and also gives certain legal terms of what is evidence, or what is acceptable and what's not acceptable as far as being able to claim.”
Ross said that limiting attorney fees is an important provision, and not solely because some lawyers were charging fees as high as 40 percent of any possible settlement or judgement. She said it will benefit the claimants.
"If they're going to go to trial, they will know how much they how much more they might get, but also how much the attorney will get and if they want to settle, maybe for a little bit less than they think they could get at trial, they know that they'll pay a lower amount of attorneys’ fees,” Ross said.
Perhaps the most helpful change, though, clarifies that those sickened by the water have the right to a jury trial and not just a bench trial decided by a federal judge.
"One of the judges in the Eastern District ruled that the law did not allow a jury trial,” she said, “Well, that was never the intent of Congress. So, we are adding in ‘you get a jury trial.’”
Many plaintiffs’ attorneys have said the DOJ is defending these lawsuits aggressively, similar to the way a corporation would, with claims that they are using legal tactics to challenge causation, delay proceedings, and minimize the total payout amount.
Murphy said that posture is often part of the legal game and, “You're talking about lawyers talking about lawyers, so that's just, I think part of the game there. The result has been that the claims have not been adjudicated, and I think that speaks for itself.
“We want to make sure that the victims show what they call general causation. It cannot be that you're on the base for one day and that you develop Parkinson's disease 15 years later, that's not what it is. You have to have ... a reasonable assumption that at the time you were exposed to it led to this disease type and there are certain parameters, certain diseases, that have a much higher incidence because of a time on that base. It's just trying to tighten things up.
“But lawyers are always going to talk about other lawyers, you know, that's just what they do.”
In his life outside the capitol, Murphy is a long-time urologist and the only practicing surgeon in Congress. He said it’s important to make the connection to a plaintiff’s illness and the harmful chemicals identified in the water on base.
“You look at different populations and you say, ‘Were the people who are exposed, do they now have a higher incidence compared to the general population, say bladder cancer or something?’ And he said, “it's those instances where you try to hone down and say, ‘Well, was this really because of just genetics or lifestyle choices or was it because of exposure?’ And so, not every case that is brought forth should be awarded. That's just not the way a case -- just because you feel like it is does not mean that you should be awarded.”
He's hopeful the Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act will be acted upon soon. Murphy said, “The government did not act ... acted poorly and it is a long, long time in coming to get remedy for those who truly deserve it, and I'm glad to see we're really getting to the final lap.”
It’s been three years since the Camp Lejeune Justice Act was signed into law, under the PACT Act legislation – which expanded benefits for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits and other harmful chemicals from Vietnam to the post 9/11 era.
And it has been just over a year since the window for Camp Lejeune contaminated water exposure victims to sue the federal government and Department of the Navy closed. Only a few settlements have been reached, and, so far, there haven’t been any trials.
Ross is upset that justice has been delayed, but believes allowing the cases to be heard in more federal jurisdictions than the already overtaxed Eastern District of North Carolina would move the process along much more quickly.
She said, “Because there was no special, expedited way of dealing with these cases and they're just being dealt with in the same way that all other cases are being dealt with, I'm upset but not surprised because I know how backlogged that courthouse is.”
And she’s confident the bill will be taken up soon, and, “We have about three different ways of trying to get it done sooner rather than later.”
North Carolina’s Thom Tillis has introduced companion legislation in the Senate, which also has strong bipartisan backing. Public Radio East reached out for comment but did not hear back from Tillis’ office.
Background:
In 1982, Camp Lejeune’s water supplies were formally tested and found to be contaminated, but the worst of Camp Lejeune’s drinking water wells remained open until 1985. Camp Lejeune residents were first notified about water contamination in June 1984 via a base newsletter, which downplayed the extent of exposure. More specific notifications about contaminated wells being shut down followed later in 1984 and 1985, but many people didn't learn the full truth until news reports in the late 1990s. The U.S. Marine Corps officially began notifying past residents in 1999 as part of a federal health study.
The contaminants at Camp Lejeune came from leaking underground storage tanks, waste disposal sites, industrial area spills and an off-base dry-cleaning firm – and testing found that three of the base’s eight water treatment facilities contained contaminants – including those that supplied water to barracks and family housing at several locations.
A study published in Environmental Health in 2014 reported samples taken at Camp Lejeune between 1980-1985 primarily contained tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene and their breakdown products, trans-1,2-dichloroethyline and vinyl chloride. Benzene was also found in the water but at officially safe concentrations.
According to the CDC, studies in animals have shown that long-term exposure to tetrachloroethylene can cause cancers of the liver, kidney, and blood systems, and changes in brain chemistry.
More than one million people may have been exposed at the base near Jacksonville.
Enacted 40 years after the government testing showed drinking water contamination aboard the base, the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022 allows people who lived, worked, or were exposed to the toxic water for at least 30 days between 1953 and 1987 to sue the U.S. government for harm caused by that exposure.
Part of the Honoring Our PACT Act, the law removed previous barriers to lawsuits and established a lower standard of proof, requiring plaintiffs to show the contaminated water was at least "as likely as not" the cause of their illness.
Victims had two years from the date President Joe Biden signed the act to sue the federal government for compensation for illnesses caused by the water contamination – a window that closed last fall.
Currently, there are more than 400,000 pending claims with the Department of the Navy, but despite that overwhelming number, not a single case has gone to trial and there have been just a few settlements.
