KBR Burn Pit Lawsuit: Plaintiffs, Dismissal, and PACT Act Impact

The KBR burn pit lawsuit, formally In re: KBR, Inc., Burn Pit Litigation, was dismissed by the federal courts and ended in January 2019 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the veterans’ appeal.¹ No settlement was paid and no verdict was ever entered against the contractor. The courts held that the U.S. military, not KBR, controlled how waste was burned at forward operating bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that federal judges could not second-guess those wartime decisions. For veterans and surviving family members, the practical path to compensation and health care now runs through the Department of Veterans Affairs under the 2022 PACT Act, not through the civil courts.

Who Sued KBR and Why

Starting around 2008, service members and civilian contractors who had been stationed near open-air burn pits began filing suit against KBR, Inc., the contractor responsible for waste disposal under the Army’s LOGCAP III logistics contract. More than 60 complaints were filed in dozens of states and consolidated in 2009 by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation into a single proceeding in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, before Judge Roger W. Titus.² Motley Rice LLC and Burke PLLC represented the plaintiffs, with attorney Susan Burke appointed lead counsel.

The pits were used to incinerate large volumes of refuse, including plastics, Styrofoam, paint, petroleum products, lithium batteries, medical waste, and vehicles. The largest identified in the litigation was at Balad Airbase, about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad.³ Plaintiffs alleged KBR used open-air burning when alternatives should have been available, placed pits too close to living quarters, failed to bring incinerators online, and burned materials known to be hazardous.⁴

The illnesses named in the complaints included asthma, chronic bronchitis, COPD, constrictive bronchiolitis, interstitial lung disease, and various cancers, along with acute symptoms like eye and throat irritation, coughing, breathing difficulty, and skin rashes.⁵

How the Case Ended

After years of motions, an appeal, and extensive discovery that produced more than 5.8 million pages of documents and 34 depositions, Judge Titus issued an 81-page opinion on July 19, 2017, dismissing the litigation. His central finding: “All of the decisions Plaintiffs challenge were in fact made by the military—not KBR.” The military, he wrote, exercised “direct and plenary control” over burn pit operations, chose the locations on every forward operating base, and decided to use pits after weighing health risks against the greater danger of alternative disposal methods in a combat zone.⁶

The plaintiffs had argued that LOGCAP III was a performance-based contract, meaning the Army told KBR what to accomplish but left the company discretion over how to do it. They also alleged KBR ran pits at some locations without proper authorization and burned prohibited materials. After reviewing the discovery record and evidentiary hearing testimony from retired generals and senior Defense Department officials, the court sided with KBR’s account of who controlled the work.⁴

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal on June 20, 2018. A unanimous panel found that KBR’s waste management operations were “de facto military decisions” because military control was “plenary and actual,” and that the political question doctrine therefore barred the courts from hearing the claims.⁷ The Supreme Court denied review on January 15, 2019, without comment, ending the case.⁸

Because the dismissal turned on jurisdiction, no court ever ruled on whether the burn pits actually caused the plaintiffs’ illnesses. As NPR reported, the courts “never took up the question of whether the burn pits caused harm.”¹

Why KBR Won

Two legal doctrines drove the outcome, and both matter for anyone considering a similar suit against a wartime contractor.

The political question doctrine requires federal courts to decline cases that would force them to evaluate decisions the Constitution assigns to the executive and legislative branches. The Fourth Circuit applied a two-part test drawn from its earlier decision in Taylor v. Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc.: whether the military exercised plenary and actual control over the contractor, and whether national defense interests were closely tied to those decisions. Both were satisfied, so the court found it had no authority to hear the case.⁷

The district court also relied on combatant-activities preemption, a doctrine grounded in the Federal Tort Claims Act’s exception for combatant activities. Under Saleh v. Titan Corp., state tort claims against a private contractor are preempted when the contractor is “integrated into combatant activities over which the military retains command authority.”⁹ The Fourth Circuit did not need to address preemption because the political question ruling alone disposed of the case.

What This Means for Veterans Now

With the courtroom door closed, Congress opened a different one. The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act — the PACT Act — was signed into law on August 10, 2022, and represents the largest expansion of VA health care and benefits in the department’s history.¹⁰

The Act establishes presumptive service connection for more than 20 conditions tied to toxic exposure. Under the old rules, a veteran had to prove that a specific illness was caused by military service, which for burn pit exposure was often impossible. Under the PACT Act, veterans who served in designated locations during specified periods are presumed to have been exposed, and if they develop a listed condition, the VA must treat it as service-connected.¹¹

Presumptive conditions include cancers of the brain, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract, and reproductive system, along with lymphoma, melanoma, multiple myeloma, and leukemia. Non-cancer presumptive illnesses include asthma diagnosed after service, chronic bronchitis, COPD, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, constrictive bronchiolitis, and sarcoidosis.⁵

The law also expanded VA health care eligibility for veterans who served in Southwest Asia and other conflict zones, mandated toxic exposure screenings for enrolled veterans, and required ongoing research into cancer and mortality among Gulf War and post-9/11 veterans. In its first year, the VA processed more than 458,000 PACT-related claims and paid over $1.85 billion in benefits, and the department accelerated its health care eligibility expansion effective March 5, 2024, ahead of the original timeline.¹¹

If your claim for a burn pit–related condition was denied before the PACT Act, you can file a supplemental claim with the VA for a new review under the current rules. The Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry has been redesigned as the Burn Pit Research Registry, and more than 4.7 million eligible veterans and service members have been automatically enrolled based on Department of Defense deployment records. Service members can view their career-long environmental exposure data through the Individual Longitudinal Exposure Record system, which launched in March 2026.¹²

One boundary worth stating plainly: the PACT Act is a VA benefits program, not a route to money damages from KBR or any other contractor. The Supreme Court’s 2019 denial left the political question and combatant-activities defenses intact for future wartime contractor suits, and a Texas federal court applied similar reasoning in Cloyd v. KBR, Inc. in 2021 to dismiss negligence claims arising from a base evacuation.¹³ For veterans and their families, the practical remedy today is a PACT Act claim through the VA.

1
NPR. Veterans Claiming Illness From Burn Pits Lose Court Fight
2
Courthouse News Service. Judge Clears Military Contractor in Sprawling Burn Pits Case
3
Global Policy Forum. KBR Tells Court It Was Following Military Orders When Employees Burned Toxic Waste in Open Pits
4
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. In Re: KBR, Inc., Burn Pit Litigation, Memorandum Opinion
5
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Burn Pits
6
Washington Legal Foundation. Judge’s Dismissal of Toxic Tort MDL Against War Zone Contractor Respects U.S. Military Prerogatives
7
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In Re: KBR, Inc., Burn Pit Litigation, No. 17-1960
8
KBR. Supreme Court Ruling Resolves KBR Legacy Legal Issue
9
FindLaw. Saleh v. Titan Corp.
10
U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Garbarino. PACT Act Veteran Toxic Exposure Benefits Resources
11
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The PACT Act and Your VA Benefits
12
Defense Health Agency. Burn Pit Registry Redesign Auto-Enrolls Participants and Simplifies Requirements
13
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Cloyd v. KBR Ruling