As those sickened by the historic water contamination at Camp Lejeune rally on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol for a second day this week, another legal battle is heating up over how the government is running the settlement program, and lawyers are now demanding immediate court intervention.
Attorneys representing several veterans and their families have filed an emergency motion in a North Carolina federal court. They are asking a judge to schedule a hearing as soon as possible to address what they describe as a broken, non-transparent, and deeply unfair process.
The motion was brought forward by attorney James Foster of Foster Law LLC. Foster, a graduate of the UNC School of Law who grew up in Raleigh and whose parents currently live in Emerald Isle, represents roughly 700 Camp Lejeune toxic water litigation victims. This latest motion directly impacts the individual cases of plaintiffs Metcalfe, Abrams, Griffin, Kopp, Coon, and Janovitch under the consolidated master litigation.
The legal filing levels a sharp accusation against the Department of Justice, claiming the agency is fundamentally violating its own rules for the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA) Elective Offer framework. According to the motion, the DOJ gave families just 30 days to accept settlement offers, completely cutting the promised 60-day review window in half.
Foster says this condensed timeline leaves vulnerable families scrambling.
"We've waited four years for this for a lot of them," Foster said in an interview. "So, why 30 days, especially when they've been doing 60 the whole time? It doesn't really make sense to anybody."
Beyond the truncated deadlines, the motion highlights a severe lack of transparency. Attorneys argue that the government has systematically shortchanged certain veterans on their payout brackets. Despite certified military records proving these individuals spent more than a year on base, their settlement calculations did not reflect it. Furthermore, the government is requiring these veterans to sign documents confirming a shorter timeline than they actually served.
"Those clients were at Camp Lejeune longer than a year, but are being presented with an offer that doesn't give them credit for being there for more than a year," Foster said. "And then at the same time, they're being told this may be the only offer that you're going to have before you die."
Foster added that the situation forces an unfair ethical dilemma onto counsel. "It's just not right. I mean, they're also asking them to sign as part of these settlement offers an affirmation on their time on base and the affirmation's wrong. I mean, the affirmation has them only being there less than a year. So they're having to swear to something that is frankly incorrect. They should be forced to fix that. I mean, the fact that they didn't fix this and I had to file this motion kind of tells you what we're dealing with on the other side."
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For other veterans, the DOJ denied claims entirely under a vague label of "insufficient evidence," without providing any itemized explanation or reason. When lawyers attempted to submit official government records to correct the math, federal officials flatly refused to review the paperwork, declaring all administrative decisions final.
"I want ultimately what is best for my clients and I want to help them get what they're entitled to and so to have them not explain anything beyond that was really troubling," Foster noted.
He also pointed out major inconsistencies in how the government handles files. "For them to say they're not considering their own records is a total farce because they considered their own records in an offer that they made two hours after my motion was filed. So, why are they only looking at records for some clients and not for others? And why are they refusing to reconsider these offers when a week later they made another offer out of nowhere on a different case? They're not following their own rules."
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Compounding the problem is an asymmetric access to records. While the government has instant entry to VA and military history databases, veterans are caught in months-long backlogs waiting on independent record requests from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), all while their 30-day clocks are ticking down.
"The Department of Justice has unfettered access to military records, medical records with the VA, whatever else they're looking at and we're having to sit here and wait on them to produce records to us through NPRC and other sources," Foster said. "Meanwhile, these claimants have 30 days to consider a life-changing decision without even the proper information. It's just totally an unfair game."
The stakes are uniquely painful for families dealing with terminal diagnoses. Foster points to one specific client who was forced to refuse a settlement offer because he had been diagnosed with both cancer and Parkinson's disease—yet the government's offer only accounted for one of his illnesses.
The man’s health rapidly declined, and he passed away shortly after. When his grieving widow asked the government to reinstate the original settlement offer, the response was rigid.
"I reached out to Adam Bain and I said, ‘Mr. Bain, will you please consider this under these circumstances?’ And they said no," Foster recalled. "They said, ‘It's our policy, once you've declined an offer, let it lapse, we don't give you another EO offer.’"
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Because the current cluster of settlement deadlines is set to expire on September 27th, attorneys are urging the federal court to step in immediately, freeze the countdown clocks, and force the government to adhere to its own rubric.
"I'm going to file a motion to expedite the ruling on that motion for hearing," Foster said. "So, hopefully that triggers something before the deadline. I don't see how in good conscience I can recommend a client even consider an offer that's just not correct. I mean, on its face. If they served in the Marines and they were stationed there for more than a year, then under the government's own rubric they should give them what they're owed under that grid."
For the thousands of Marines and family members who lived through what is widely considered one of the worst water contamination disasters in U.S. history, the current gridlock feels like a second betrayal.
"This is probably the most egregious facts we'll see in our lifetime in terms of how severe the poisoning of that water was and when they knew about it and still allowed these people to live there," Foster said. "And yet here's how they're being treated on the back end."
The Department of Justice has not yet formally responded to the new court filing.
