More than 5,000 military veterans and their families face a shrinking window to prove they were exposed to toxic water at Camp Lejeune, even as the federal government holds millions of digitized records that could immediately verify their claims, according to federal court transcripts from a recent status conference.
The ongoing legal battle over the U.S. Marine Corps digitization records took center stage before Magistrate Judge Robert B. Jones, Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina last month.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs revealed that while the Department of Justice (DOJ) recently handed over long-awaited data archives, the government is simultaneously blocking the use of those files to help thousands of veterans currently trying to resolve their claims through the administrative settlement process.
A Race Against the Clock
According to court transcripts, which were not released until nearly a month after the hearing, the DOJ sent roughly 5,000 letters to claimants with pending Elective Option (EO) claims, giving them a strict 30-day window to substantiate their presence at the base.
"The EO offered amounts is dependent upon the claimant being able to show that he was at the base and the dates that he was there," plaintiffs' attorney Mona Lisa Wallace told the court. "Meaning, you’re paid more if you’re there for a year, for example, as opposed to thirty or ninety days."
With deadlines on those letters expiring, the very evidence needed to secure those settlements remains locked inside a dispute over five hard drives containing massive military archives. Plaintiffs' attorneys requested an emergency meeting with the DOJ to establish a controlled process to use these records, but they reported that the government has resisted.
"It appears from the letter that we received that the DOJ... are not willing to allow the use of these documents that we’ve waited on for months, that we asked for in discovery, for either the EO or the global resolution," Wallace said.
The Power of "Muster Rolls"
The monthly logs contained on the hard drives—referred to as muster rolls— include more than three million files, upwards of 99,000 pages of documents, and Wallace told the court they are vital because they definitively place an individual at Camp Lejeune on specific dates and identify their specific unit.
Furthermore, the hard drives contain unit diaries that fill critical gaps for veterans who may have been stationed nearby but exposed during training cycles. For example, Wallace noted that many Marines stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point—located just 45 minutes away—regularly conducted their training at Camp Lejeune.
Wallace said, “By having all those unit diaries, then we can see when that Marine from Cherry Point was here training, and where he trained generally. So the information, it doesn't tell us where these Marines were every day, but it certainly gives us a very good viewpoint of where they were, generally, and exactly the dates that they were there.”
The Standoff Continues
The Camp Lejeune water litigation stands as one of the largest toxic mass torts in U.S. history, enacted under the landmark Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA).
While the DOJ has indicated it may consider allowing the plaintiffs' leadership group to use the three million files strictly within the context of active, ongoing court litigation, its refusal to open the data for administrative settlements leaves thousands of aging, sick veterans in a bureaucratic limbo.
