You too can make the ultimate sacrifice and be sued by taxpayer-funded private contractors

You too can make the ultimate sacrifice and be sued by taxpayer-funded private contractors

After developing health problems consistent with hexavalent chromium exposure, the veterans sued KBR for negligence in Federal Court in Portland. After a month long trial, the jury awarded the veterans $85 Million in 2012. KBR appealed, and sought $30 Million in legal fees and damages from the veterans for initiating the lawsuit. The soldiers, residents of Oregon and under orders from the Department of Defense, placed on loan to a private entity contracted by the DoD, sued in their home state in federal court, not state court. They argued that a chemical used at the Qarmat Ali treatment facility had, to the knowledge of KBR, contaminated the site. Remaining at the site without being informed of the presence of the cancer agent by DoD or KBR constituted negligence. The Oregon jury agreed.

Oregon veterans and victims of toxic burn pit exposure linked to contractor Halliburton were devastated when the 9th Circuit overturned a landmark $85 million verdict. Soldiers contend they were knowingly exposed, but the allegations have obviously been denied.

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Halliburton’s subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) allegedly exposed soldiers to toxic burn pit smoke at Qarmat Ali. The 9th Circuit held that Oregon veterans were unable to hold KBR accountable in their home state. Instead, counsel for the veterans now plans to sue KBR in Houston.

KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton, has decided to sue 12 National Guard veterans for $850,000 in lost legal fees. The case was the result of events from 2003 when KBR was officially a subsidiary of Halliburton. However, it wasn't until earlier this year when the Supreme Court said it was okay for veterans to sue the Houston-based company. So how come KBR can sue these veterans for legal fees, you might ask? So, it was overturned but not because KBR isn't still entirely responsible for making these soldiers ill because of their greed and/or incompetence. If you read the site you aren't surprised that anything with even the lightest hint of Halliburton stench on it is rotten to the core. Unfortunately, this tactic of trying to crush people financially with mountains of litigation can frequently work. Oregon's representative delegation sans the one Republican have sent a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter urging him to take over the litigation and settle with the 12 Oregon veterans. The letter outlines the biggest problem in all of this: the KBR contract with the Department of Defense immunizes the private contractor from any litigation.

An excerpt from the Oregon delegation:



Money is going to be spent on the part of this contractor who has already made several dozens of billions of dollars on the war in Iraq. They already have enough money to tie up sick veterans in litigation for years but they won't have to worry about using any of their money to do it. Just all of our money. Say what you will about the Obama administration, they have tried over the past few years to promote fixed contracts and companies like KBR have been bristling at the thought of having to actually run a private contracting business without having the deck stacked in their favor.

Fixed-price contracts and task orders are generally viewed as less risky and less expensive than cost-reimbursable work when the work to be done is well understood and limited in scope. The Obama administration made it a reform priority in 2009 to use more firm, fixed-price contracts and fewer cost-reimbursable contracts.

