The statute of repose was used to prevent Camp Lejeune suits, but changes mean it may not be used for GenX WILMINGTON — Legislative tweaks made in recent years to a rare law that limits when legal claims can be filed in contamination cases will likely benefit residents around the Fayetteville Works plant at the center of GenX cases, said a North Carolina environmental law expert.
North Carolina is one of four states with a statute of repose for environmental contamination — a law that limits how long after contamination ceases a lawsuit can be filed, even if diseases potentially linked to the contamination do not reveal themselves for longer than the statute of repose.
“It is limited to groundwater contamination, so it would not apply to anything caused by surface water contamination,” Smith said.
While the exemption is not applicable to damages arising out of surface water contamination, a 2016 federal appeals court case addressed the matter.
CTS cases The statute of repose legislation came soon after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in CTS Corp. v. Waldburger.
“The problem with groundwater contamination,” Smith said, “is a lot of the health effects are kind of long term.
They might not be immediately apparent until more than 10 years after you’ve been drinking the water.” In the 2016 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit case Stahle v. CTS Corporation, though, decided the statute of repose should not be applicable in cases of illness.
Should a plaintiff be diagnosed with a disease they believe is linked to chemical contamination, they have three years to file a claim seeking damages under the statute of limitations.
“The 10 years was an outer limit,” Smith said, “and the problem is an outer limit doesn’t work well in cases like groundwater contamination health effects.” Contamination’s long-term effects are something Jerry Ensminger and other victims of the Camp Lejeune contamination are all too aware of.
Samples showed wells at Camp Lejeune contained TCE, perchlorethylene, benzene and other compounds linked to a range of diseases including kidney cancer, liver cancer and multiple myeloma, among others.