Marines And Others May Refile Camp Lejeune Water Lawsuits That Had Been Previously Rejected By The Navy

Lawmakers have removed the legal hurdle placing a time limit for filing Camp Lejeune water contamination lawsuits

Thursday, August 25, 2022 - The Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA) gives people who have been injured by drinking Camp Lejeune water the right to sue the federal government. Plaintiffs must have lived or worked on the base for at least 30-days from 1953 to 1987 and have developed cancer or initially diagnosed with cancer during that period. The Act also applies to the survivors of those who died but were once stationed at the Marine base, worked for the government, or was a contractor working on the base who drank the tap water which was contaminated with toxic, carcinogenic volatile organic compounds, benzene, and methyl chloride. The types of cancer that Camp Lejeune residents and employees suffered from have a latency period of around 10 years before the signs of the disease become apparent. Cancer can also lie dormant in the body for over a decade making it difficult to establish a cause-and-effect relationship to when and where the disease occurred. We now know that thousands of people who drank the Camp Lejeune water have been diagnosed later in life with cancer connected to the chemicals that were in the local tap water.

If you lost a loved one at any time to cancer since 1953 and they served at Camp Lejeune for at least 30-days, you may have a case to sue the Federal government for lump-sum monetary compensation. Thousands of people have already done so but were rejected by the Department of Defense because they waited too long and the Statute of Repose had expired. That Statute has been nullified by the Camp Lejeune justice act and those lawsuits may be refilled. NBCNews.com explained the frustrating situation that the surviving spouses, children, siblings, and other loved ones of Marines that died from Camp Lejeune water cancer experienced leading to the passage of the CLJA. "The secretary of the Navy is denying all remaining civil claims by individuals exposed to contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, leaving roughly 4,500 plaintiffs with claims of more than $963 billion in damages with no cash payouts." The Navy rejected these lawsuits because the Statute of Repose, not the Statute of Limitations, had expired, a much more restrictive limitation. Under the Statute of Repose, one is prevented from filing a lawsuit ten years after the initial bad act occurred. In addition to that Marines have had their claims for compensation rejected by the Veteran's Administration on other technicalities and because they were unable to handle the volume of claims. According to The Military Times today, "Veterans Affairs processors in recent years mishandled more than one-third of all disability claims related to water contamination issues at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, potentially cheating as many as 21,000 veterans out of financial compensation, a government watchdog said Thursday." Given the unwillingness of the military to compensate Marine Corps survivors with the financial aid they need, it looks as though hiring a Camp Lejeune water attorney and filing a lawsuit through the court system is the only way to go.

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