Updates with comment from U.S. Navy in paragraph 4
By Diana Novak Jones
Aug 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy has received more than 546,500 claims for compensation from people impacted by decades of contaminated water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, a court filing shows, putting it squarely among the largest injury cases of all time.
That may fluctuate up or down by a few thousand, the government said in the filing. The U.S. Navy is reviewing additional claims received up to the Aug. 10 deadline and removing claims that are found to be duplicates.
The of administrative claims filed with the U.S. Navy – a step claimants must have taken by the Aug. 10 deadline to receive compensation for injuries they attribute to the water – surpasses the 400,000 lawsuits filed over 3M Co’s military-issue earplugs, which is regarded as the largest multidistrict litigation in history.
The Navy did provide details on the final of claims, but said it was reviewing each claim and "is committed to resolving every valid CLJA claim as fairly and expeditiously as possible."
The U.S. Marines first discovered dangerous chemicals in the water at Camp Lejeune in 1982, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services later acknowledged that between 1953 and 1987 chemicals in the water on the base may have affected a million people, leading to diseases like kidney cancer, leukemia and bladder cancer.
The Aug. 10 deadline marked two years since President Joe Biden signed legislation that included the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. After years of state and federal court dismissals of lawsuits over the water based on North Carolina state law, the act opened a two-year window for Camp Lejeune claims, requiring people seeking compensation from their injuries to file an administrative claim with the U.S. Navy before they can file a federal lawsuit.
So far, just over 2,000 lawsuits have been filed by people whose claims were resolved at the administrative level, the court filing said. Those cases go to a single federal court in North Carolina. The first trials aren’t expected until later year.
The process of resolving administrative claims has been slow, and many more lawsuits could be on the way. As of earlier this month, only about 150 cases have been resolved, according to a tally from the U.S. Navy.
The ongoing litigation over 3M’s earplugs has included more than 390,000 lawsuits since the MDL’s creation in 2019. The 3M earplugs were widely used in both Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2015.
Last year, the company agreed to pay $6.01 billion to settle 260,000 remaining lawsuits by current and former U.S. military service members who say they suffered hearing loss from using the company's earplugs.