Lawyers representing victims of the Camp Lejeune toxic water controversy are strongly objecting to what they believe to be a “misguided” attempt by the government to ban jury trials while targeting the resolution of potentially hundreds of thousands of compensation claims.
A motion discussing this concern was filed on Monday by the lead plaintiff’s attorneys. They argued that the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, passed by Congress last year, was explicitly intended to give veterans, workers, and others affected by contaminated water on the North Carolina base, an opportunity to present their case to a jury. Bloomberg Law, reported that lawyers noted “For decades, the government has ruthlessly evaded compensating the plaintiffs for their years of suffering, lost opportunities, and death—first by covering up the contamination and then by invoking a host of technical legal arguments to evade liability under existing law”.
Governments’ counter-argument asserts a plaintiff’s right to a jury trial “only where Congress has affirmatively and unambiguously granted that right”. They contend that the Camp Lejeune Justice Act did not explicitly grant this, only providing for “appropriate relief” for victims.
The controversy surrounding this case is one of two major pretrial disputes that could significantly disrupt and slow down the settlement process. The second concern relates to lawyers’ fees. Past reports have revealed some lawyers were charging their clients fees amounting to 40% or more of any settlement. Responding to this, the government introduced a motion to cap attorney fees at 20% of the administrative settlements and 25% of the litigation payouts, which is aligned with the standards followed by the Federal Tort Claims Act.
In addition to this, the government has announced an early resolution program, aiming to quickly distribute payments varying from $100,000 to $550,000 to victims or their relatives, provided their claims are undisputed.
The scale of the Camp Lejeune case is significant; over 129,000 claims have been filed with the Navy so far, and government lawyers believe that addressing these claims alone could cost in excess of $3.3 trillion. The deadline for filing claims is set for August 2024, and the first trials could commence sometime during the same year. An estimated 1,400 lawsuits have been filed as of now, and experts predict this number will increase as the deadline approaches.