Camp Lejeune Justice Act

The ruling comes after Dr. Julie Goodman submitted what she called “corrections” to her findings—updates that included nearly 300 changes to her analysis of dozens of medical studies.

Last week, the Department of Justice Civil Division announced that nearly 650 Elective Option – or settlement - offers have been approved in the past three weeks, and there have been just over 2,500 approved settlement offers since 2023. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said he’s proud of the work done to speed up the approval process in the past year. However, advocates Mike Partain and Jerry Ensminger, whose tireless research and congressional testimony turned personal tragedies into the legislative momentum behind the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022, said it would take about 429 years before the Navy gets through all the claims at the current pace.

Under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, the government can offset a victim's payout based on certain federal benefits already received. However, lawyers for the Plaintiffs’ Leadership Group argue the government should not consider future benefits or payments from programs like TRICARE, which they contend are not covered by the law.

“We were living at Geiger Trailer Park, which were these little bitty trailers that I think Eleanor Roosevelt had arranged for World War II vets to live in,” she said, “And when we found out that we would get a house in Tarawa Terrace, we were so excited about it, because then we could get out of the little bitty trailer."

"I wish they would have just said, screw you, we're not going to do it. We don't care. Go ahead and die. Stop holding out hope. Stop making us fight. You know, I mean, it's cruel,” Cathy Makely said, “It's so cruel.”

Marvin Cox served in the United States Marine Corps from 1981 to 1985. His last duty station was Camp Lejeune. He has since been diagnosed with cancer.

A status conference for the Camp Lejeune Justice Act cases is scheduled for Friday at the Alton Lennon Federal Building and Courthouse in Wilmington before Magistrate Judge Robert B. Jones Jr.; it starts at 11 a.m.

The evidence from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry uses computer models to reconstruct how and when drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated, especially during the 1950s to 1980s when actual water testing was limited.

Seventy-two years after service members were first exposed to toxic water at Camp Lejeune, and three years after the passage of the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, litigation over the resulting health impacts remains ongoing, with a new motion filed this week in an attempt to speed things up.

The water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune near Jacksonville was contaminated with industrial solvents and benzene, and it’s considered one of the worst cases of water contamination in U.S. history. Nearly one million Marines, sailors, civilian employees, and military family members were potentially exposed, according to the CDC.