Camp Lejeune lawsuit (1 Viewer)

[Warrior]

I've been seeing advertisements and my mother has been receiving documentation through the mail referencing a "Camp Lejune lawsuit". It appears that soldiers stationed there during a certain period of time were exposed to certain chemicals that could cause a number of diseases. Well, my Dad was stationed there during that time period and passed away a couple years ago due to adult onset Leukemia (one of the top diseases listed in the documentation).

My limited knowledge of these sorts of lawsuits is that most of the time the lawyers make most of the money leaving little for the families. And there appear to be a TON of lawfirms advertising that they'll help you get compensation. Looking for some sort of advice on how to navigate the situation...do I advise my Mom to reach back out to one of the firms that mailed her about the lawsuit? Any way to differentiate between which firm(s) would be best to use vs. which ones would be foolish to work with? Is something like this even worth pursuing at all? Does anyone have experience navigating something like this? We're not really sure where to start, short of throwing a dart and tying our wagon to a lawfirm we know nothing about.

Not looking for any formal legal advice, more just wondering where to start with a situation like this and/or if it's likely just a huge waste of time.

 

[simey]

Not looking for any formal legal advice, more just wondering where to start with a situation like this and/or if it's likely just a huge waste of time.

I don't think it is a waste of time. The Camp Lejeune Justice Act is real, and was signed into law today. It is part of the Honoring our PACT act. Being that your dad died of adult leukemia, and was on the base during the timeframe, it is worth exploring whether to join a lawsuit. A lot of lawyers are probably giving free consultations, and are working on a contingency fee basis, so your mom can talk to several and get a feel for things. The lawsuit isn't just for the marines that were on the base at the time, but also for veteran families and civilian employees that were also on the base, and could have been affected by the contaminated water. A lawyer can explain things better, but as I said, it is definitely worth exploring. I would.

 

[Tom Servo]

I've been seeing advertisements and my mother has been receiving documentation through the mail referencing a "Camp Lejune lawsuit". It appears that soldiers stationed there during a certain period of time were exposed to certain chemicals that could cause a number of diseases. Well, my Dad was stationed there during that time period and passed away a couple years ago due to adult onset Leukemia (one of the top diseases listed in the documentation).

My limited knowledge of these sorts of lawsuits is that most of the time the lawyers make most of the money leaving little for the families. And there appear to be a TON of lawfirms advertising that they'll help you get compensation. Looking for some sort of advice on how to navigate the situation...do I advise my Mom to reach back out to one of the firms that mailed her about the lawsuit? Any way to differentiate between which firm(s) would be best to use vs. which ones would be foolish to work with? Is something like this even worth pursuing at all? Does anyone have experience navigating something like this? We're not really sure where to start, short of throwing a dart and tying our wagon to a lawfirm we know nothing about.

Not looking for any formal legal advice, more just wondering where to start with a situation like this and/or if it's likely just a huge waste of time.

I get 6-8 spam emails a day about this. Ugh.

 

[Warrior]

Not looking for any formal legal advice, more just wondering where to start with a situation like this and/or if it's likely just a huge waste of time.

I don't think it is a waste of time. The Camp Lejeune Justice Act is real, and was signed into law today. It is part of the Honoring our PACT act. Being that your dad died of adult leukemia, and was on the base during the timeframe, it is worth exploring whether to join a lawsuit. A lot of lawyers are probably giving free consultations, and are working on a contingency fee basis, so your mom can talk to several and get a feel for things. The lawsuit isn't just for the marines that were on the base at the time, but also for veteran families and civilian employees that were also on the base, and could have been affected by the contaminated water. A lawyer can explain things better, but as I said, it is definitely worth exploring. I would.

Thanks for the reply! Someone PM'd me suggesting that we could fill out the forms/documentation through the VA site directly and that a lawyer may not be necessary. I'm very unfamiliar with the case and with this process in general...does anyone know if this is as simple as providing the proper documentation and filling out the right forms with the VA?

I guess my real question is: does anyone know if this is a lawsuit taking place and a lawyer needs to fight for us to get compensation, or whether this has already been decided and we simply need to claim our share by filling out the paperwork? Of course, all the info I find online so far really makes it seem like going through lawyers is necessary because all the info I'm finding via Google is through lawyer websites and press releases trying to get me to use their services.

*Edit: Best I can come up with is that this is something that families could previously apply to the VA for to get health coverage, but today it was signed into law that you can file a lawsuit for additional compensation. So I guess that's why there is a deluge of attorneys trying to get clients to file those lawsuits. Though I'm still not really sure what a good first step would be to figure out which attorney(s) would be good to use for such a thing.

 

[Van Dyman]

Hopefully some of the lawyerguys will chime in.

 

[simsarge]

Look up one of your local veterans organizations and ask. I read somewhere (it might have been the VFW magazine) that said that if you joined the lawsuit you might give up the chance to file a VA claim
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