MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It's been three years since the first hearing for people who filed claims in the massive Camp Lejeune contaminated water settlement, but there still hasn't been a single trial. Thousands of veterans and family members who lived on the North Carolina base can sue the government under a law that Congress passed back in 2022. As WUNC's Jay Price reports, both the plaintiffs and the judges are growing frustrated.
JAY PRICE, BYLINE: The judges in the North Carolina federal court that's hearing the cases said from the beginning that getting the settlements done quickly was critical. People were exposed to the tainted water from 1953 to 1987, which means many are not only sick but elderly. Jason Johns, the head of the VFW's National Legislative Committee, spoke at a recent rally in Washington, D.C. He said one law firm is representing about 2,000 plaintiffs, and nearly 10% of those have died in the past two years.
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JASON JOHNS: Next year, it's going to be 20%. The year after that, it's going to be 30%. If DOJ continues to do what it's doing, in five to 10 years, there'll be nobody left.
PRICE: In an interview, he blamed the delays mainly on the Justice Department lawyers defending the Navy. He says they've been stalling, filing numerous motions, including trying to relitigate responsibility that Congress already admitted to in the 2022 law.
JOHNS: It creates an imbalance in the negotiations for settlements to say, you know what? Yeah, I've only got so many years left, or my family's financially desperate. We need the money right now. We'll take a third of what we might have gotten five years ago.
PRICE: While plaintiffs say they're jaded by years of delays, a recent sharply worded court order has given them at least some hope. The judges handling the thousands of lawsuits have ordered lawyers on both sides to hammer out a mass settlement plan by the end of October.
JIM WARD: It's something. Do I have much confidence? We'll have to see what goes on with it, but it's something more than what we have had.
PRICE: Jim Ward, who lives in Georgia, served at Lejeune in the early 1980s. He has an aggressive form of bladder cancer and his wife, who lived with him on base, has breast cancer. Both types of illness have been linked to the toxins in the water. Ward says he also believes the government lawyers are intentionally slowing progress to use the plaintiff's ages and illnesses as leverage for lowball settlement offers.
WARD: What a lawsuit means to you at 60 when you have some of your health and what it means to you at 80 or 85 when your health is almost all gone because of illness is two different things. You tend to settle for less, and you say I'll do anything that you all tell me.
PRICE: The Department of Justice didn't respond to a request for an interview, but a former top DOJ litigator says he doesn't believe it would intentionally cause delays.
PAUL FIGLEY: DOJ has no reason to drag it out. There's no there there (ph).
PRICE: Paul Figley, now a law professor at American University, was with the DOJ for 30 years and served as deputy director of the Torts Branch, dealing with lawsuits against the government. He followed some of the early developments in the case and says he knows the lead government litigator, Adam Bain.
FIGLEY: He's not trying to cheat these people because he doesn't like them. He's just saying this is the law. This is what you have to show. If you can't show it, then you shouldn't win.
PRICE: Regardless of who's most at fault for the delays, plaintiffs like Jim Ward say it's time for them to end. He says the nation admitted in the 2022 law that it poisoned marines and their families, and there's been more than enough time to decide which sick people should be compensated and how.
WARD: We don't need another four years, three years, two years of this being argued back and forth over who's right and who's wrong. The illnesses are wrong. Let's get this settled. Let's get it done. Let's get these people taken care of. Let's get them so they can continue with their healing.
PRICE: The dozens of law firms representing plaintiffs are themselves represented by a small leadership group appointed by the court. The court's new order says they and the Justice Department lawyers must meet every week under the supervision of two court officials. If they don't reach an agreement by the October 30 deadline, the court may replace the plaintiff's leadership group attorneys, and it threatened unspecified actions against the government defense team.
For NPR News, I'm Jay Price in Durham, North Carolina. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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