Over 545K Camp Lejeune Claims Submitted By Veterans, Family Members Before Filing Deadline

Parties have agreed on what plaintiffs need to prove in the first Camp Lejeune bellwether trials, after negotiations for a global settlement have failed so far

More than half a million U.S. Marine Corps veterans, family members and other individuals who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune have now filed claims with the U.S. Navy, indicating that exposure to contaminated water on the North Carolina military base caused them to develop cancer and other injuries.

That number was announced in recently submitted court documents, days after the deadline for filing claims under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA) expired on August 10, closing a two year window for individuals exposed to water on the base between the mid-1950s and early-1980s to seek financial compensation from the U.S. government.

The Camp Lejeune litigation is currently being overseen by U.S. District Judges Richard E. Myers II, Terrence W. Boyle, Louise W. Flanagan and James C. Dever III, all from the Eastern District of North Carolina, who directed the parties early in the pretrial proceedings to provide regular status reports on Camp Lejeune settlement efforts, including information about individual and global settlement negotiations.

In a report (PDF) submitted this week, the U.S. Navy indicates that it has now received about 546,500 administrative claims filed under the CLJA. In addition, at least 2,037 Camp Lejeune lawsuits have been filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina.

With the U.S. Navy only having identified 137 claims out of the more than half a million filed to date that qualify for Camp Lejeune settlements, the parties and the Court are moving forward with a bellwether process, preparing several “tracks” of claims involving different categories of injuries for early trial dates, which are designed to help gauge how the Court may respond to certain evidence and testimony that is likely to be repeated throughout the litigation.

The status report indicates that the parties have agreed on three criteria that plaintiffs must establish to satisfy the burden of proof in the first track of claims being prepared for bench trials, including that they lived or worked on the base for at least 30 days during the period from August 1, 1953 to December 31, 1987. They must also show that they suffered harm, and that the harm was caused by exposure to contaminated water on the base.

“The parties agree that to satisfy the burden of proof as to the third element, Plaintiff must produce evidence showing that the relationship between exposure to the water at Camp Lejeune and the harm is either (A) sufficient to conclude that a causal relationship exists or (B) sufficient to conclude that a causal relationship is at least as likely as not,” the status report states.

The Track 1 Camp Lejeune lawsuit bellwether trials will focus on the following categories of injuries:

• Bladder cancer
• Kidney cancer
• Leukemia
• Parkinson’s disease
• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

While the outcome of these early bellwether trials will not have a binding impact on other claims in the litigation, they will be closely watched by lawyers involved in the cases, as the average amounts of any Camp Lejeune lawsuit payouts awarded may help the parties in continuing global settlement negotiations to resolve claims involving various types of injuries.