Camp Lejeune Water Lawsuit Update: Elective Option and Payouts

The Camp Lejeune water lawsuit is stuck in a slow-moving phase: as of mid-2026, no bellwether trial date is firmly set, settlement offers through the government’s Elective Option have topped $876 million with about $665 million actually paid, and more than 400,000 administrative claims remain unresolved.¹ The filing window closed on August 10, 2024, so the fight now is over how the existing pile gets resolved, not who else can join.

How Much Has Actually Been Paid

Through May 2026, the Department of Justice has approved more than $876 million in Elective Option settlement offers, and roughly $665 million has been paid to claimants.¹ In a recent three-week stretch, DOJ approved 649 offers worth $175 million, pushing the cumulative count to 2,531 approved offers since the program began.²

Set those numbers against the caseload. About 409,000 administrative claims are pending with the Department of the Navy, and more than 3,700 lawsuits have been filed in federal court. The submitted claims carry an estimated face value above $335 trillion.² Roughly 2,500 paid settlements against 400,000-plus claims means under 1% of claimants have seen money. Federal workforce reductions have slowed processing further, and the backlog is growing.

What the Elective Option Pays

The Elective Option is a voluntary settlement grid the DOJ and Department of the Navy rolled out in September 2023 for claimants with certain qualifying diagnoses and enough documentation to prove exposure.³ Payment depends on the tier your condition falls into and how long you were at Camp Lejeune.

Tier 1 conditions include kidney cancer, liver cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemias, and bladder cancer. Offers are $150,000 for 30 to 364 days of exposure, $300,000 for one to five years, and $450,000 for more than five years.
Tier 2 conditions include multiple myeloma, Parkinson’s disease, kidney disease or end-stage renal disease, and systemic sclerosis or scleroderma. Offers are $100,000 for 30 to 364 days, $250,000 for one to five years, and $400,000 for more than five years.
A $100,000 death supplement applies when the qualifying injury caused the claimant’s death, taking the top possible offer to $550,000.

Accepting an Elective Option offer waives any right to further litigation on that claim.³ The documentation bar is strict. Of the roughly 400,000 claims, only about 50,000 initially appeared to qualify for the Elective Option, and by early 2026 fewer than 14,000 had cleared the threshold for settlement consideration. Claimants whose conditions fall outside the tier list have no Elective Option path and must wait for trial outcomes or a broader framework the DOJ has signaled but not detailed.¹

Where the Bellwether Trials Stand

Every Camp Lejeune lawsuit is heard in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, which has exclusive jurisdiction.⁴ The court is running a bellwether process: a representative group of cases goes first, and those outcomes are expected to guide settlement values for the thousands behind them.⁵

Cases are grouped into tracks by diagnosis. Track 1 covers bladder cancer, kidney cancer, leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and Parkinson’s disease, with the initial bellwethers focused on leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma and consolidated before a single judge. Track 2 adds prostate, kidney, lung, liver, and breast cancer, along with kidney disease.

Mediation on 25 bellwether cases during summer 2025 collapsed with almost none of them settling. Trials had been expected in 2026, but fights over expert testimony and damages schedules pushed the calendar. In March 2026, a federal judge struck the expert reports of a key government witness after finding that changes submitted as minor corrections in fact contained nearly 300 substantive revisions in violation of court rules. No firm trial date has been set, and the litigation is in a holding pattern.

No Jury — the Supreme Court Left That Ruling Alone

Camp Lejeune plaintiffs will not get a jury. The district court held that the Camp Lejeune Justice Act did not clearly waive sovereign immunity to the degree needed for a jury trial against the federal government, even though the statute says nothing in its subsection “shall impair the right of any party to a trial by jury.”⁴

Plaintiffs sought a writ of mandamus and then Supreme Court review in McBrine v. United States. On May 5, 2025, the Supreme Court denied certiorari.⁶ Cases now proceed as bench trials, with the judge deciding both liability and damages. Juries have historically been more generous than judges sitting alone in personal injury cases, which is a factor in how both sides value settlements.

Pending Bill That Could Change the Rules

The Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act of 2025 (S.907), introduced in the 119th Congress, would rewrite several key provisions.⁷ It would explicitly guarantee either party the right to request a jury trial. It would exempt pre-suit settlements from VA and Medicare offsets while modifying offsets for post-filing settlements and judgments. It would lower the causation standard, letting a plaintiff prevail by showing a causal link exists or is “at least as likely as not.” And it would write the 20% and 25% attorney fee caps directly into the Camp Lejeune Justice Act rather than borrowing them from the Federal Tort Claims Act. S.907 had not been enacted as of mid-2026, and its path forward is uncertain.

How a Settlement Interacts With VA, Medicare, and Medicaid

Filing a claim does not by itself reduce your VA disability benefits. If you receive a settlement or judgment, the statute requires your award to be offset by VA disability, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits already received for the same Camp Lejeune-linked condition. Benefits for unrelated disabilities are not touched.⁴

How far that offset reaches is disputed. The government reads the statute to subtract all connected VA, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits from any court award. Plaintiffs’ attorneys read it as limited to benefits already “provided,” not future benefits. The question will likely be settled through the bellwether trials.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said CMS will not pursue Medicare Secondary Payer recovery against Elective Option payments or other Camp Lejeune awards.⁸ Medicare Advantage plans and state Medicaid agencies, however, can decide on their own whether to seek reimbursement.

Attorney Fee Caps

The government treats the Federal Tort Claims Act fee limits as controlling. Attorneys handling administrative claims are capped at 20% of the settlement, and attorneys handling filed lawsuits are capped at 25% of any judgment or settlement.¹ An attorney who exceeds those caps faces a fine of up to $2,000, up to one year in prison, or both.⁹ The caps apply to the net amount after any benefit offsets. Some firms have advertised Camp Lejeune representation on contingency terms that appear to exceed the federal ceiling; read any retainer against these limits before signing.

Are Settlements Taxable

Settlements paid for physical injury or physical sickness are generally excluded from federal taxable income under 26 U.S.C. § 104, whether paid as a lump sum or over time.¹⁰ The Camp Lejeune Justice Act bars punitive damages, so the exclusion should cover the full settlement for claims based on cancer, Parkinson’s, or other physical conditions.⁴ Interest paid on a delayed award is a separate issue and may be taxable as ordinary income, so run the numbers with a tax professional before assuming everything is tax-free.

The Filing Window Is Closed

The Camp Lejeune Justice Act gave claimants two years from the law’s signing on August 10, 2022, to file an administrative claim. That deadline passed on August 10, 2024, and the Department of the Navy is no longer accepting new claims.¹¹ No court order or legislation has extended it. If you didn’t file by then, you are generally barred from pursuing compensation under the Act.

If you did file before the deadline and are still waiting, your rights are preserved. Once six months pass without a decision, or if the Navy denies the claim, you can sue in the Eastern District of North Carolina.¹² Many people who filed near the deadline should expect the Navy’s response to arrive well into 2027 or later given the current backlog.

1
Department of Justice. Camp Lejeune Justice Act Claims
2
United States Department of Justice. The Department of Justice Approves Historic Number of Settlements to Camp Lejeune Victims and Families
3
Department of the Navy. Public Guidance on Elective Option for Camp Lejeune Justice Act Claims
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC Ch 171 Front Matter – Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022
5
United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Order – In Re Camp Lejeune Water Litigation
6
Supreme Court of the United States. Susan McBrine et al v United States – Opposition Brief
7
GovInfo. S 907 – Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act of 2025
8
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Alert Clarification Medicare Secondary Payer MSP Recovery Against Awards Made Under Camp Lejeune
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2678 – Attorney Fees; Penalty
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness
11
Department of the Navy. Camp Lejeune Justice Act Claims – Claim Eligibility
12
United States Navy. Claims Submission Process