The drinking water at Camp Lejeune was found to be contaminated from the 1950s through the 80s, and the CDC found more than a million people may have been exposed. The Camp Lejeune Justice Act allowed those sickened to sue the federal government for damages, and more than 400,000 have filed complaints.
Eric Flynn is a partner with the Bell Legal Group, which is handling hundreds of the toxic water cases, and he said more than 2,500 lawsuits have been filed, and 411,000 claims remain pending with the Department of the Navy.
Related content: Marine Corps veteran battling bladder cancer frustrated by snail's pace of Camp Lejeune Justice Act court cases
Right now, the attorney said 25 specific cases have been selected for “bellwether” trials -- the first track of trials that will go to court – and they are connected to specific illnesses. Flynn said, “The five diseases in track one are Parkinson's, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Those diseases were selected for a number of reasons. One, they do represent a fairly large number of claimants in the global population, and when I mean global, I mean the 411,000 population.”
He said the cases were chosen with the input of both sides, and any awards made to victims in the first trials will set a sort of baseline to determine future settlement amounts.
For example, Flynn said, “The blood cancers could be used to kind of inform potential settlements for aplastic anemia or myelodysplastic syndrome or other types of blood diseases, and maybe potentially soft tissue cancers. The organ cancers could be used to extrapolate values for things like maybe prostate cancer, stomach cancer, cervical cancer, other types of organ-based cancers. Parkinson's could be used as a way to extrapolate for other neurological diseases like ALS and similar types of diseases that work on the nervous system.”
The reason that’s important, Flynn said, is because there’s very little precedent set for a legal action of this nature.
“There's not a lot of litigation on Parkinson's. Not a lot of litigation on bladder cancer or kidney cancer,” he said, “There is some litigation on non-Hodgkin's lymphoma because of the Roundup cases -- the Round Up weed killer cases. But more broadly, stomach cancer, all these other types of diseases that may be caused by the water at Camp Lejeune, there's just not a lot of litigation on them because they don't come up very often in the context of toxic exposure. It's pretty unusual to have over 30 years of just absolute chemical contamination that just went unchecked for a very long period of time in a very large area, with a lot of people involved, right? And so, a lot of the unknown in the case is really just, ‘What are these cases worth?’”
Many of the plaintiffs have expressed frustration about the slow pace of the litigation, with only a few settlements reached and those first bellwether trials not expected to begin until early next year.
Flynn said all parties involved are anxious for things to gain greater momentum, and he understands that is especially true for the victims – and why that’s the case. He said, “It's one thing for me as a lawyer to sit here and talk to you about procedural pacing. It's another thing for a person who has lived with this, lives with these diseases that are horrible, and they may be dying, or they had a loved one that died while waiting for justice. So, I want to be very clear that nobody feels the urgency of this case more than the victims.”
In fact, District Judge James Dever, who presided over the first hearing in the suit filed by the Marines and their families who were harmed by the toxic water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune said if each case went to trial independently, it would take the four U.S. District Court of Eastern North Carolina judges 1,900 years to get through — around the same time span of the Roman Empire.
Related content: Widow of Marine whose breast cancer death may have been caused by toxic water at Camp Lejeune awaits justice
Still, Flynn said that in any legal case, and especially one as complex as this, there are procedures that can’t be avoided. “There is a process to litigation,” he said. “It's not unusual to have disputes over science and experts and evidence and what comes in and what doesn't and who says what and who doesn't, and what parts of reports are valid and what parts are reports are not. That's very common. I think what is unusual is the scale of the case. Folks are wrestling with very complex things. But I do understand very, very deeply that it's not fast enough for people who are really sick and who are dying.”
Congresswoman Deborah Ross introduced a bill in early summer that would make adjustments to the Camp Lejeune Justice Act – the original legislation that paved the way for people sickened by the toxic water aboard the base to sue for damages.
The Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act would make technical corrections to the initial legislation, including allowing the cases to be heard in any North or South Carolina federal court and not just the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Related content: N.C. lawmakers push for changes to Camp Lejeune Justice Act to get help to victims and families more quickly
Flynn said, “If you think about the other civil cases that these judges have, and you think about the criminal cases that these judges have, which are constitutionally entitled to expediency, then it starts to eat away at the amount of time on an available calendar that the court can expand on trials.”
The proposal, which is expected to be taken up in both chambers of the U.S. Congress soon, also clarifies that the victims have a right to trial by jury. He said, “These are folks that fought for the American way of life, right? When you talk to them and you ask why they joined the Marine Corps, they did it out of a sense of patriotic duty to protect American values. And one of the most fundamental American values is a right to a jury trial. And I think this is just exactly what they're entitled to. A jury trial in America is a fundamental right, so much so that it's included in the 7th Amendment.”
That legislation, which Flynn hopes will be signed into law soon, also caps lawyers’ fees at 20 percent of the judgement for settlements and 25 percent for cases to go to trial.
