JACKSONVILLE, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Leading plaintiffs law firm Grant & Eisenhofer announced it represents U.S. military service members and their families who have been exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, the Marines’ enormous training facility in Jacksonville, N.C.
The service members are asserting claims under the Honoring Our PACT Act and the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, which President Biden signed into law today.
The new law allows military service members, their loved ones, and anyone harmed by exposure to the contaminated water at the 246-square-mile military base to sue the federal government to recover damages.
“For more than three decades the U.S. government has negligently dumped toxins that persistently contaminated water at Camp Lejeune that our service members, and their families, bathed and showered in, cooked with and drank,” says Sindhu Daniel, a Partner at Grant & Eisenhofer who represents a number of claimants. “We are pleased to see that the President has just signed into law the Honoring Our PACT Act, which was passed by the Senate earlier this month. For so many who have been injured by the water, now is the time to seek the justice and financial remedies that have long been deserved.”
For about 35 years — between 1953 and 1987 — nearly one million people lived and worked on the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base, unknowingly drinking and bathing in water that was contaminated with toxins such as oil, petrol, industrial wastewater, and chemicals.
The pollutants—dumped into local storm drains by the U.S. government—have been linked to many serious injuries, cancers, and other conditions. Ms. Daniel notes that included among the maladies are birth defects, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, leukemia, liver cancer, miscarriage, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and Parkinson’s disease.
”That those prepared to give their lives in defense of our country — and their families — could be negligently exposed to poisons in their water here in the U.S. at the hands of our government is disgraceful and incomprehensible,” Ms. Daniel says. “Some of the injured within the timeframe for claims included newborn babies of service members. We intend to see that long-overdue justice and restitution are brought to these victims.”
Along with Ms. Daniel, Partner Beth Graham represents a growing number of Camp Lejeune claimants. Both lawyers practice as part of G&E’s Mass Tort Litigation Group.
The firm’s Mass Tort Litigation attorneys currently hold or have held leadership positions in numerous high-profile multi-district litigation matters, among them In re 3M Products Liability Litigation, a centralized federal action brought on behalf of military veterans who have suffered hearing loss or tinnitus allegedly caused by 3M’s reversible Combat Arms Earplugs. The earplugs were issued to hundreds of thousands of soldiers by the U.S. military to protect them during training and in combat between 2003 and 2015. G&E serves on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in this litigation. More detailed information on the Combat Arms Earplugs suit and G&E’s other active mass tort litigations can be found at: https://www.masstortreport.com/
G&E also represents a number of plaintiffs in major environmental cases through its Environmental Litigation group. The group focuses on natural resource damages caused by the production and distribution of hazardous chemicals as well as environmental catastrophes arising out of the negligence of corporations. Among this practice group’s many notable recoveries, G&E’s environmental litigation practice, working with the Delaware Department of Justice, recently secured the state’s largest-ever environmental damages recovery — up to $75 million — in a historic pre-suit settlement with DuPont defendants following an extensive PFAS contamination investigation.
About Grant & Eisenhofer
Grant & Eisenhofer is one of the nation’s leading litigation firms, with a highly successful track record representing plaintiffs in complex litigation and arbitration matters. The firm has offices in Wilmington (Delaware), New York, Chicago and San Francisco, and an international docket of high-profile cases. In the past 15 years, the Firm has obtained recoveries totaling over $29 billion for its clients across its many practice areas, and has twice been cited by RiskMetrics for securing the highest average investor recovery in securities class actions. G&E has been named one of the country’s top plaintiffs’ law firms by The National Law Journal for more than a decade, and was named one of the nation’s “Most Feared Plaintiffs Firms” as well as one of Delaware’s “Regional Powerhouses” by Law360. For more information, visit www.gelaw.com.