Hi, today I will talk about the Camp Lejeune water contamination lawsuit.
according to ‘ ‘Neil Woods” One of the things I want to go through today is kind of some of the most frequently asked
questions that our clients have been asking our law firm about these lawsuits.
Congress passed legislation that is now allowing veterans, their family members, and any individuals that spent time
at Camp Lejeune to sue the federal government for health conditions that are related to toxic water exposure.
Camp Lejeune had contaminated water that they used for bathing and drinking, and anything they had on base was used the contaminated
water for roughly about 34 years.
During that time period, the federal government knew that the water was contaminated but it continually just kept using it on base.
Therefore, exposing veterans, their family members, and anybody that worked on base to this toxic water for decades.
This lawsuit is not only for veterans, it is also for spouses, children, unborn children, workers.
So, basically, anybody that was at Camp Lejeune for 30 consecutive days or longer.
So, you may be wondering what if I worked at Camp Lejeune and I was a groundskeeper and I wasn’t an employee of the military.
That’s fine. You’re going to be included in this lawsuit. It’s going to cover anyone that was there.
This is not just limited to veterans. It’s not just limited to their family members.
It is anyone who was exposed to toxic water at Camp Lejeune for over 30 days.
What conditions are going to be eligible to join this lawsuit?
Congress did not actually come up with a distinct list of conditions that are going to be covered in this lawsuit.
So, what they did say is that anyone who was exposed to contaminated water for over 30 days and has health conditions
from it is going to be eligible for compensation.
Let’s talk about what conditions are probably going to be covered and what you can expect to be related to your toxic exposure
at Camp Lejeune.
The first one is obviously going to be cancer because there was just about every toxin you can think
of in the water at Camp Lejeune.
Cancer is related to almost every single one of you know, TCEs, PVEs, PCEs, benzine, all the things that are in the water
so if you served at Camp Lejeune for 30 days or over and you at any point in your life developed cancer
I would probably try to join this lawsuit because there’s probably going to be some compensation available for you.
The other things that we think are going to be covered under these lawsuits are going to be cardiac defects.
So that’s going to be anything that is related to the cardiovascular system that we are going to be
able to prove toxic exposure caused it.
Some of the other things are miscarriages.
A lot of women that were at Camp Lejeune who were drinking the toxic water, they were bathing in it, washing clothes, cooking, showering,
you know they were in it, in this toxic water every day. We now know that a lot of the chemicals that they were being exposed to are
directly related to miscarriages.
So the other one we’re seeing is Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s can, we now know, be caused by some environmental, you know, exposure
to chemicals out there.
One of the most interesting conditions that we are seeing that is probably related to Camp Lejeune’s toxic water
exposure is neurobehavioral issues. So, you may be wondering how toxic, you know, we understand how toxic water and the connection to
cancer, but how is the connection to neurobehavioral issues there?
Whenever you ingest toxins and they build up in your body, they can affect the systems from one end of
your body to the other.
And that includes your brain. So, we are seeing in a lot of people chemical imbalances and just various
neurobehavioral issues.
Really, if you were there and you have any health conditions, I would reach out to a lawyer.
One of the most common things veterans have been asking us
is, you know, if I receive VA disability benefits, can I join the lawsuit? And the answer is yes.
Joining the Camp Lejeune water contamination lawsuit is not going to affect your VA disability benefits.
But, your VA disability benefits can actually affect the outcome of the Camp Lejeune water contamination claim.
So, here’s how that happens. Let’s say on your VA disability benefits, you are service-connected for cancer from Camp Lejeune toxic water, and let’s say you receive
$25 total for all of those payments.
Now, let’s say that you join the Camp Lejeune water contamination lawsuit and your settlement at the end of it is a hundred dollars. There’s
going to be an offset.
So, what that means is you’re going to subtract the $25 that you earned in VA disability
benefits from the $100 that you earned in the Camp Lejeune water contamination lawsuit.
Now, as you can see that the the veteran in that situation still walks out of the lawsuit with $75 in their pocket.
So, it’s not like the entire settlement is going to be wiped clean. It is still worthwhile
for veterans to join this lawsuit.
No, this is not a class action. Every one of us regularly opens up your mail and there’s a check for $5 and 43 cents from
some business that you worked with 10 years ago and you had no idea.
And that’s what people think of class actions and they’re typically right. There’s not much money in it
for the actual people who are harmed. So, this is different.
This is technically called multi-district litigation and here’s how that works. So, like a class action,
there is a class of people. They put everyone into one big group into one courtroom and this is going to be in one of the
federal districts in North Carolina, so all the cases will be in one court and what they’ll do is they will decide
the cases together as a class but then they will actually make the final determinations on the value on each case individually.
So, you’re probably thinking, okay, what is all that lawyer speak that you just did mean?
Well, here’s what it actually means.
What it means is the court is more likely in a multi-district litigation to give you what you
deserve versus what other people in the class deserve.
So, one of the reasons that lawyers use multi-district litigation is that we find these settlements are higher
for clients.
One of the biggest questions that clients are asking us is what is my expected settlement in the Camp Lejeune water
contamination lawsuit. I don’t know what to tell you here.
It’s too soon. Any litigation when it is right in the beginning stages like this is anyone who acts like they know
what the actual values will be at the end of it is not being truthful.
So here’s the good news for veterans, their family members, their clients, there is no cost to join this
lawsuit.
Don’t be afraid to give a call and join this lawsuit because you think that you can’t afford it or you
can’t afford a lawyer, that’s not the way that this works.
There will only be a fee if the case is successful and it’ll be a percentage of the settlement.
If there is no settlement, you will not pay your attorney anything, not a penny.
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