Feds Can Keep Defenses In Camp Lejeune Water Suits, Law360 (June 26, 2023)

Hunter Shkolnik, representing some of the plaintiffs who sought to strike the defense, told Law360 on Monday: "We understand the court's ruling and are comforted that Judge Boyle confirmed the intradistrict mass coordination process that we have been seeking. This motion can be wrapped into discussions related to a master complaint and master answer. While these issues are dealt with, we hopefully can pursue settlement talks."

A North Carolina federal judge ruled Monday that the federal government can keep its affirmative defenses intact to rebut allegations that water from the Camp Lejeune Marine base poisoned people, saying any vagueness in the defenses was only due to vagueness in the complaints themselves.

The plaintiffs can ask to scratch the defenses as insufficient later in the litigation, Judge Boyle said.

The U.S. Department of the Navy, which operates the Marine base, has received tens of thousands of administrative complaints concerning injuries from the water contamination, and more than a thousand lawsuits have been filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, according to information from the Wednesday hearing.

The cases before Judge Boyle were filed under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022, authorizing the claims and barring the federal government from asserting immunity as a defense. Those claims allege that people living or working on the base from 1953 through 1987 consumed contaminated water and developed a host of life-altering health conditions.

Previous Camp Lejeune water contamination claims had been consolidated in multidistrict litigation, but they were tossed in 2016 after the Eleventh Circuit ruled North Carolina's 10-year statute of repose negated the allegations.

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