Total Number of Camp Lejeune Injury Claims Drops to 480K, After De-Duplication Process: Report

Lawyers updated the court on the status of Camp Lejeune water contamination lawsuits, as preparations continue for early bellwether trials.

After accounting for duplicate filings, settlements and dismissals, the number of Camp Lejeune lawsuits and administrative claims brought against the U.S. government has dropped to below half a million, as lawyers report that preparations are still on course for a series of early bellwether trials over injuries caused by water contamination problems at the North Carolina military base.

The total number is down from a peak of more than 546,000 administrative claims and more than 2,000 lawsuits filed under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA), which provided a two-year window for individuals to seek compensation for illnesses linked to exposure to water on the base between the mid-1950s and early 1980s. That window closed on August 10, 2024.

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 resolutions, since it would take decades to resolve each claim at trial.

According to a status report (PDF) submitted by the parties on January 6, there have been a total of 2,298 Camp Lejeune lawsuits filed in North Carolina federal court. Of those, 95 have been dismissed. In addition, the Department of Navy has determined that there are about 480,000 administrative claims once all duplicates were accounted for.

The Navy indicates it is working to “publicly launch an enhanced Claims Management Portal improving every filer’s ability to effectively manage their CLJA claim online,” according to the report. The Navy states that it has accelerated the reviews of any claims containing supporting documentation, in order to give claimants settlement offers as soon as possible.

In the interim, the parties report that they are moving forward with a bellwether process that is 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 likely to be repeated throughout the litigation.

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

A Second Track of Camp Lejeune bellwether trials are also being prepared involving claims with the following categories of injuries:

• Prostate cancer
• Kidney disease
• Lung cancer
• Liver cancer
• Breast cancer

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.