Judge Pushes Lawyers to Resolve Camp Lejeune Toxic Water Claims

A federal judge urged lawyers for the Justice Department and potential victims of Camp Lejeune toxic water contamination to intensify their efforts to quickly resolve what could be hundreds of thousands of claims.

“It’s frustrating to have this enormous load hanging over our heads,” Judge Terrence Boyle told lawyers and plaintiffs who filled his Raleigh, N.C., courtroom on Wednesday.

Boyle is one of four judges in the district presiding over the cases. He noted that he alone called for the hearing to discuss progress on the pace of claims, but said his colleagues agreed on the need to move more quickly to help veterans and others suffering life-threatening diseases.

“There’s no case like this in the history of America,” the judge said.

About 160,000 people have already filed claims seeking compensation for being exposed to toxic water on the North Carolina Marine base between 1953 and 1987. The window to file such claims closes in August.

An early resolution program announced in September 2023 offers eligible claimants between $100,000 and $550,000. But one analysis of existing claim data suggests fewer than 14% of the claimants would qualify, Bloomberg Law reported this month.

The lawsuits represent claims that were denied or unresolved six months after being filed.

None of the cases have gone to trial and Justice Department attorneys said in court Wednesday that just seven cases have been settled so far through the early resolution program.

Different Strategies

Boyle’s queries revealed the strategies being pursued by the two sides.

J. Edward Bell III, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said he would be ready to go trial next week if asked. “Any trial date you give us, we will be ready,” Bell told the judge. “Courts going to learn a lot” from a trial.

He said the court should consider multi-plaintiff trials based on the diseases the claimants have. Those trials could be wrapped up in three to four days, he said.

Adam Bain, the lead lawyer for the Justice Department said trials should not begin until later in the year.

“If we rush this case to trial, we’re going to have information that is not very useful,” he said.

Both sides are working to agree on a settlement master, who could mediate and settle cases.

Zina Bash, a co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs, noted that both sides need to resolve outstanding disputes over whether jury trials will be allowed, the issue of whether the Federal Tort Claims Act applies to the Camp Lejeune Justice Act passed by Congress in 2022, and specific causation issues.

In a court filing this week, Justice Department lawyers repeated their contention that attorneys fees could be one obstacle to more quickly resolving claims.

The government has sought to bar lawyers from collecting more than 25% of any payout. In its filing, the government said one of the members of the plaintiffs leadership group, whom they did not identify, has been attempting to charge their clients 40% of their award, plus expenses, and resisting early resolution payouts that might impose such a cap.

They cited one plaintiff who in a deposition said he declined an early resolution offer from the Navy “because he expected that, after attorneys’ fees and taxes, he ‘would have ended up with really nothing.’”

Boyle said he was open to setting trial dates for April or May, but he issued no orders or schedule.

Jerry Ensminger, a Camp Lejeune veteran who lost his daughter to leukemia and has campaigned for decades to compensate those affected, said he was angry with the government’s pace of resolving cases. “They are the Department of Justice, not the Department of Injustice.”

The case is Camp Lejeune Water Litig. v. US, E.D.N.C., No. 7:23-cv-00897, hearing 1/24/24