A federal court ruling in North Carolina this week will have a devastating impact on many of the nearly 20,000 Floridians currently registered with the Marine Corps for their exposures at Camp Lejeune to three known human carcinogens found in the camp’s drinking water, said a man who contracted breast cancer as a result.
Those Floridians are on a list compiled by the Marines. They may have been exposed as far back as 1953, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
“Legally, we are done,” said Mike Partain of Winter Haven, who was born at Camp Lejeune 46 years ago. “The government has successfully found a silver bullet to put an end to legal issues. If this happened in Florida, rather than North Carolina, we would still be legally able to pursue the government.”
Neither the Marines nor the Department of Justice responded to requests for comment.
This week, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a North Carolina law limiting the time period in which a plaintiff can seek damages.
The law, called the statute of repose, placed a 10-year limit on which plaintiffs in that state can seek damages from exposure to contaminants, with no exception for latent diseases like the cancer contracted by Partain.
The ruling came in response to a landmark Supreme Court case, CTS Corp. vs. Waldburger.
At issue, say those opposed to the Justice Department position in favor of CTS Corp., is “whether a North Carolina statute could pre-empt federal environmental law to void injury claims of victims harmed by hazardous pollution.”
Partain said the ruling essentially creates a 10-year limit on how long after a site has been polluted that people can file a lawsuit. Because Lejeune’s water supply was found to be contaminated from the 1950s to 1987, people like Partain who discover health woes years later now have no civil recourse. Potentially about one million Marines, spouses and children who lived on base during that time could be affected.
There is no way of knowing how many on the Marine Corps registry served and how many were family members, said Partain.
Earlier this year, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry released results of a study into chemical contamination at Lejeune that found “increased risk of death in the Camp Lejeune cohort for several causes including cancers of the cervix, esophagus, kidney and liver, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. This study makes an important contribution to the body of evidence about harm caused by these chemicals. However, due to its limitations it does not provide definitive evidence for causality nor can it answer the question whether an individual has been affected by these exposures at Camp Lejeune.”
Partain, who was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago, said his father, Warren Partain, was stationed at Lejeune when he was conceived and born. His family lived there until he was six month old, he said. Aside from the cancer, he has had on-going health issues as the result of chemotherapy, including hormone imbalances that have created other problems.
“This now creates some real issues,” he said of the ruling. “For example. God forbid, if my father should contract male breast cancer, he would be covered for his health care costs at the (Department of Veterans Affairs). He could also file a claim for VA disability benefits for his illness and be compensated.”
But for those who never served yet still contracted diseases by exposure, avenues for compensation are far more limited, Partain said.
“Because of this court ruling, I am unable to recover any of my past medical expenses or sue for damages caused by the government’s negligence,” he said. “Beginning Oct. 24, I will be able to receive future medical care for 15 different illnesses (mostly cancers) and nothing more. If my mother should become ill with breast cancer, all she would receive would be medical treatment and nothing more. If she or I should develop a disease not on the health care list, we receive nothing.”
U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) has introduced legislation “to ensure federal law takes precedent over the state statute so victims have another option to seek justice.”
That bill, also introduced by U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, (D-NC) is making its way through the legislative process.
Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-FL), is considering whether to support it and “will continue to assist those who have been impacted by Camp Lejeune contaminated water issues and will look into what else can be done to help these veterans and their family members in light of this ruling,” said Brooke Sammon, a Rubio spokeswoman.
PHOTO:The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a North Carolina law limiting the time period in which a plaintiff can seek damages from exposure to pollutants at Camp Lejeune. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE