US District Court Burn Pit Decision

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT  FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

Conclusion – US District Court Decision, #09318721818

As it observed in its 2013 Opinion, the Court is not unsympathetic to the claims of the Plaintiffs. Many of them have been harmed, at least to some extent, by the use of open burn pits or by the water that they drank in Iraq or Afghanistan. However, as to those Plaintiffs who claim injury while serving in the military, they are not without significant remedies. See Defense Base Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1651-1654; War Hazards Compensation Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1701-1706.

In addition, bipartisan legislation was recently introduced in Congress to provide additional remedies to persons affected by the burn pits. See Helping Veterans Exposed to Burn Pits Act, H.R. 1279, S. 319, 115th Cong. (2017) (assigned to the House Veterans’ Affairs and Armed Services Committees and the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, respectively).

The fairly limited case law applicable in this case establishes legal principles that this Court has applied based upon its factual findings. Those cases, however, are not a perfect “fit” for the circumstances of this case. The sweeping, generalized decade-long multi-war zone claims made by the Plaintiffs are factually quite different from the far more limited and discrete circumstances in cases involving an individual military convoy (Carmichael), electrocution of a soldier in a shower (Harris), electrocution of a workman (Taylor), and torture (Al Shimari). The legal principles established in those cases were not applied to sweeping claims of the nature made by the Plaintiffs in the cases now before this Court.

Conclusion – US District Court Decision, #09318721818