Judge denies motion to dismiss Lejeune water lawsuit

Updated at 6:13 p.m.

A district court judge has thrown out another attempt to invalidate the case of a former Camp Lejeune resident who is suing the U.S. government for illnesses caused by exposure to contaminated drinking water aboard the base in the 1980s.

On Wednesday, Eastern District Court Judge Terrence Boyle denied a motion by the government to reconsider requests to dismiss the $10,000 injury lawsuit of Marine spouse Laura Jones, who contracted non-Hodgkins lymphoma after living aboard Lejeune for three years with her husband.

Jones, 46, a resident of Glenwood, Iowa, was diagnosed in 2003, but did not learn until 2005 that the water she drank and bathed in between 1980 and 1983 had been contaminated. She submitted a complaint with the Navy in 2007, then filed suit in district court July 2009.

Boyle previously rejected two motions by the government to dismiss the case on the grounds that there were no standards to govern levels of the Lejeune contaminants TCE and PCE during the period of contamination and that Jones’ case was outside of North Carolina’s 10-year statute of repose for injury claims.

On Wednesday, the judge reaffirmed his position that the statute didn’t apply to latent diseases, particularly when the plaintiff was not made aware of the presence of contaminants.

“Interpreting (the statute) to apply to latent diseases would lead to absurd consequences,” he wrote.

In Boyle’s November dismissal of previous objections, he acknowledged other former residents of Camp Lejeune who were exposed to the contaminants, now estimated at a million or more.

“The Court cannot fathom a law that would require hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs to bring their claims before they even had opportunity to know they were harmed,” he wrote.

In response to the assertion by the Navy that the chemicals in question were not legally regulated, Boyle had cited a 1982 report showing the chemicals to exceed limits set by the Navy’s own Bureau of Medicine.

In Wednesday’s decision, Boyle also granted Jones’s motion to proceed with her case.

Jones’ suit may well be the start of many: A voicemail for Jones’s attorney, Joseph Anderson of Anderson Pangia & Associates in Winston-Salem, notes the firm has been flooded with requests from former Lejeune residents with similar complaints. The firm’s website notes that it is not presently accepting additional Lejeune-related cases.

Anderson did not return a request for comment Friday.

In another case that has received significant media attention, former Marine Joel Shriberg of Pinehurst filed suit against the government last month for $16 million, claiming Lejeune’s contaminated water led to his diagnosis with male breast cancer.

The Navy and Marine Corps have declined to comment on pending litigation.

A district court judge has thrown out another attempt to invalidate the case of a Camp Lejeune resident who is suing the U.S. government for illnesses caused by exposure to contaminated drinking water aboard the base in the 1980s.

On Wednesday, Eastern District Court Judge Terrence Boyle denied a motion by the government to reconsider requests to dismiss the $10,000 injury lawsuit of Marine spouse Laura Jones, who contracted non-Hodgkins lymphoma after living aboard Lejeune for three years with her husband.

Boyle previously rejected two motions by the government to dismiss the case on the grounds that there were no standards to govern levels of the Lejeune contaminants TCE and PCE during the period of contamination and that Jones’ cancer, which was diagnosed in 2003, was outside of North Carolina’s 10-year statute of repose for injury claims.

On Wednesday, the judge reaffirmed his position that the statute didn’t apply to latent diseases, particularly when the plaintiff was not made aware of the presence of contaminants.

“Interpreting (the statute) to apply to latent diseases would lead to absurd consequences,” he wrote.

In Boyle’s November dismissal of previous objections, he acknowledged other former residents of Camp Lejeune who were exposed to the contaminants, now estimated at a million or more.

“The Court cannot fathom a law that would require hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs to bring their claims before they even had opportunity to know they were harmed,” he wrote.

In Wednesday’s decision, Boyle also granted Jones’ motion to proceed with her case.