Bill > S907

This bill amends the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022 to make several technical corrections regarding legal claims for individuals harmed by water contamination at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina. The bill clarifies the standards for filing lawsuits, including expanding the definition of harm to include latent or potential harm and establishing that claimants must prove they were present at Camp Lejeune for at least 30 days. It modifies evidentiary standards, specifying that claimants must show a causal relationship between water contaminants and their health issues is either conclusively causal or at least as likely as not. The bill grants exclusive jurisdiction to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina for pretrial matters, but allows transfer to other district courts within the fourth judicial circuit. It also establishes guidelines for attorney fees, limiting them to 20% for settlements before civil action and 25% for settlements or judgments after civil action. Additionally, the bill addresses how health and disability benefits may be offset in relation to legal settlements and stipulates that the Act applies retroactively to claims pending or filed on or after August 10, 2022. The bill does not modify existing statute of limitations provisions from the original 2022 act.

Justice

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/907/all-info