Camp Lejeune Justice Act Quagmire Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better

There is no plan in place to handle the thousands of lawsuits that will be filed in 2023 and beyond

Tuesday, June 20, 2023 - More than 1000 Camp Lejeune water lawsuits have been filed to date because the Department of the Navy has failed to address the claims administratively. Reuters is reporting, the Navy will have to address each of the first batch of about 650 lawsuits one by one individually, a task that most experts involved think is impossible. One of the North Carolina judges tasked to hear cases said processing them all would take 2000 years. To make matters worse, tens of thousands more lawsuits are about to be filed and lawmakers are insisting the Navy come up with a plan to handle the claims "en masse" according to Reuters. " Camp Lejeune water contamination lawsuits are expected to make up one of the largest mass litigations in history. Nearly 1,000 contamination lawsuits have been filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina so far." Judges in the Eastern District of North Carolina where the lawsuits must be filed, and there are only four judges by the way, have asked some of the 500 or more attorneys that represent bulks of Camp Lejeune drinking water contamination clients, to submit their suggestions for a plan to expedite handling and paying the claims. People at the Department of the Navy told reporters that they are understaffed and need additional funding and additional personnel if they are to have a chance to handle the claims administratively before they go to court, the original intention of the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. Filing a lawsuit was thought to be unnecessary, as a last resort to be used only if the Navy rejected their administrative claim based on the amount of money being requested was above guidelines, the claims were due to a disease not thought to be presumptively caused by drinking the contaminated water or that 6 months had expired with nothing done on the file. The latter is the case in 100% of the Navy's rejections so far. And experts think that the current untenable situation is just a fraction of the cases that will come before the two-year filing deadline expires in August 2024. "More lawsuits are almost definitely on the way. Since the bill was signed, more than 70,000 administrative claims have been submitted to the Navy, the Justice Department said. As of early May, none of the claims or lawsuits had been resolved," Reuters reported.

The issue of Camp Lejeune water contamination arose when various toxic, carcinogenic contaminants were discovered in the early 1980s in the water supply. This revaluation exposed a potential health risk to millions of individuals that had passed through the base having stayed at least 30 days. The extent of the situation cannot be understated since prolonged exposure to volatile chemicals like the ones found at Camp Lejeune is presumed to cause severe health complications including a long list of different types of cancer. Individuals who resided or worked at Camp Lejeune from 1953 to 1987 and have become sick or those who have lost a loved one to cancer during this period are strongly advised to consider their potential exposure and contact a Camp Lejeune water attorney to evaluate their eligibility for filing a claim.">

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