A Federal court in North Carolina recently issued a set of major rulings that change the financial and medical boundaries of the Camp Lejeune toxic water litigation. But while some legal analysts view these as procedural updates, many victims and advocates are refusing to call them a win.
Long-time advocates for service members, dependents, and civilian employees sickened by decades of water contamination at Camp Lejeune argue that incremental court orders do nothing to fix a fundamentally stalled process.
The drinking water aboard the base was found to be contaminated by industrial solvents and other chemicals from the 1950s through the 80s, and the CDC found more than a million people may have been exposed. The water continued to be used for nearly five years after highly toxic volatile organic compounds were first explicitly identified.
Advocate Mike Partain, who was himself sickened by toxic water exposure while he was in-utero, puts the majority of the blame for the stalled justice on the DoJ. He said, “Department of Justice and these career attorneys, bureaucrats for lack of a better word, that are entrenched in the DOJ's environmental branch have gone rogue. They're not following the will of Congress. They're creating a mess and screwing over our veterans and their families.”
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina this month handed down two significant orders that alter the math of the Camp Lejeune litigation. The first, Order 885, restricts the Department of Justice from automatically slashing final payouts using existing federal benefits. The judges ruled the government must explicitly prove at trial that any VA, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits were paid out for a medical condition directly caused by Camp Lejeune's water.
In a parallel eleven-page ruling, Order 884, the court struck down the testimony of a prominent government medical defense expert, Dr. Lisa Bailey, because her reports were submitted late. Jerry Ensminger, who has been advocating for victims for nearly three decades, after his daughter died of leukemia, was not surprised. “Her report was so full of errors,” he said. “I mean, it was a mess, from what I understand, and I guess they couldn't get it corrected in time.”
For the families who rallied at Capitol Hill earlier this month, just twenty-four hours before the rulings were issued, tweaking the rules of a bench trial doesn't solve the core problem: after four years, not a single case has actually made it to a courtroom floor. Mike said the Department of Justice is simply using these procedural motions to reshape scientific boundaries and drag out litigation, while thousands of poisoned veterans die waiting for their day in court.
“If the Department of Justice was following the spirit of the law, then this would be a settlement negotiation, not fighting this tooth and nail, not trying to get everything dismissed, not trying to challenge their own experts,” he said, “Because the end result, when you look at that, the Department of Justice is attempting to get a zero settlement by claiming nobody met the criteria to show that they were poisoned.”
That is why the battleground shifted right back to Washington. Protesters and bipartisan lawmakers continue to demand immediate passage of the Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act. The bill would guarantee victims the right to a trial by a jury of their peers; open up the case to more federal courts rather than just those in the Eastern District of North Carolina; and would allow plaintiffs to show general causation, that their illnesses were as likely as not caused by exposure to the toxins, rather than specific proof that the water made them sick. It would also cap attorney fees. But the legislation was introduced a year ago this week and has been completely parked in committee with no forward movement.
Many advocates place the blame on House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan. Sources familiar with the matter indicate the committee is not actively pursuing the bill, citing high costs and alternative priorities. I reached out to Jordan’s office but did not hear back.
The same is happening with the Senate version of the bill, which is also stalled in committee, and Jerry said every day the bill sits there, more victims lose their chance at accountability. He said, “Justice delayed is justice denied. And the longer they delay this, the more of these victims become, they become desperate. Eventually they're like hungry fish in a pond. You throw some bait in there and, buddy, they rise and take it right away.”
The bait, in this case, is the Camp Lejeune Elective Option -- an expedited settlement program established by the Department of the Navy to quickly resolve administrative claims. Mike said the small number of settlements that have been accepted and approved are far lower than victims could receive through the courts. “The longer you delay, it creates pressure, like Jerry's saying, with the hungry fish,” he said, “But it's a tactic that they're using, and they've been quite successful on it because there is no pressure on the Department of Justice.”
In mass torts, like the CLJA, a global settlement framework is rarely agreed upon until a few "test cases" called bellwether trials go to trial. The first Track 1 bellwether trials, covering leukemia, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and Parkinson’s Disease, are currently expected to begin later this year, but that goalpost has been pushed back repeatedly. Trials were initially expected to begin in late 2025.
Equally frustrating, Mike said, is that those responsible for covering up the contamination and continuing to provide drinking water from toxic wells for years after the chemicals were discovered, were not and will not be held accountable. “We thought that by exposing the lies, challenging the narrative, and getting the truth out there, that there would be some accountability,” he said, “And to date, nobody that perpetrated the contamination cover-up has ever been held accountable. No one's ever been court-martialed in command. Most of these people were either dying or dead now or comfortably collecting a retirement.”
I also reached out to North Carolina U.S. Senator Thom Tillis and U.S. Representative Greg Murphy, who sponsored the Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act in their respective chambers. Tillis did not respond. Because of a busy week on The Hill, I was unable to schedule an interview with Murphy, but he did provide a statement.
"Delivering justice to the individuals and families impacted by contaminated water is one of my highest priorities in Congress. I continue to advocate for my bill, the Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act, regularly with Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan. Unfortunately, because of the ridiculous 43-day government shutdown last year, the legislative backlog in committees has slowed business tremendously. I am working hard to push it forward and won’t stop until we get it signed into law," said Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D.
Public Radio East will continue to track both the legislative bottleneck in Washington and the mounting frustration in North Carolina and beyond.
