Latest news with #JudgeKobayashi
CBS News
09-05-2025
- Health
- CBS News
$680,000 awarded to 17 families exposed to jet fuel-tainted water at Navy base in Hawaii
A federal judge has awarded a total of more than $680,000 to 17 families who say they were sickened by a 2021 jet fuel leak into a Navy drinking water system in Hawaii. The bellwether cases set the legal tone for another 7,500 military family members, civilians and service members whose lawsuits are still awaiting resolution. U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi handed down the ruling Wednesday, awarding from $5,000 to more than $104,000 to each plaintiff. In her order, Kobayashi wrote that it was clear that even though the contaminated water could have caused many of the kinds of medical problems the military families experienced, there wasn't enough evidence to prove a direct link. The amount awarded to each of plaintiff was significantly smaller than the roughly $225,000 to $1.25 million that one of their attorneys, Kristina Baehr, requested during the two-week trial in federal court in Honolulu. As bellwether plaintiffs, the 17 were chosen because they were seen as representative of the thousands of other people whose cases are still pending. Baehr called the damage awards disappointing but said the families "prevailed against all odds against the U.S. Government." "These families can be proud that they helped prove to the world what truly happened when the Navy poisoned the water supply near Pearl Harbor and sickened so many," Baehr said in a press release. "The Court rejected the Government's argument that thousands of our clients were just psychosomatic and that there was not enough fuel to make anyone sick." A tunnel inside the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility is seen in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Jan. 26, 2018. The U.S. Navy will comply with Hawaii's order to remove fuel from a massive underground storage tank facility near Pearl Harbor blamed for contaminating drinking water, officials said Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022. Shannon Haney / AP Baehr said the legal team was reviewing options for resolving the thousands of remaining cases. Baehr previously told CBS News that her clients experienced symptoms including dizziness, brain fog, disorientation, rashes, nausea, vomiting and burning in the esophagus. The government admitted liability for the spill before the trial began, but its attorneys disputed whether the plaintiffs were exposed to enough jet fuel to cause the vomiting, rashes and other alleged negative health effects. The spill happened at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, a giant installation built in the early 1940s to supply the planes and ships crossing the Pacific Ocean. The installation includes a series of massive tanks — each roughly the height of a 25-story building, capable of holding 12.5 million gallons — hidden inside caverns that the military excavated from a mountain ridge above Pearl Harbor. Underneath it all is an aquifer, equipped with wells that provided drinking water to the Navy and to the city of Honolulu. In May of 2021, a ruptured pipe allowed more than 20,000 gallons of fuel to spill into a fire suppression line. It remained unnoticed inside the sagging line for six months until a cart rammed the line, releasing the trapped fuel. Around Thanksgiving Day, much of that fuel flowed into a drain and drinking water well that supplied 90,000 people at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. A Navy investigation report released the following year found that military officials failed to immediately notify the state Department of Health, that the Navy missed four separate opportunities to activate emergency response plans to respond to the water contamination, and that the Navy told residents that the drinking water was safe without doing any laboratory analysis to confirm that was the case. Within a week of the spill, military families started complaining about health problems — including peeling skin, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea and other issues. The plaintiffs said they were left with ongoing health problems, including seizures, asthma, eczema and vestibular dysfunction. Jamie Simic, one of the plaintiffs named in Baehr's larger case, said her "daughter's teeth were crumbling out of her head" and that she herself was "throwing up while cooking dinner." Mai Hall told CBS News that she, her husband and their two kids were living in military-provided housing at the time of the leak. The family quickly began experiencing symptoms, she said. Even their pets became sick. "The cats were vomiting. I was like, 'Oh my God, we're gonna die,'" she told CBS News in 2023. "...We knew something was wrong. It was kind of like post-apocalyptic." The spill sparked an outcry from lawmakers, environmental groups and residents, and the military eventually agreed to drain the tanks and close the facility. The tanks were drained last year, but Baehr told CBS News in 2023 that the military didn't do much to help individual families. "They didn't actually clear your house. They didn't properly flush any of those houses," Baehr said.
Reuters
08-05-2025
- Health
- Reuters
US ordered to pay $600K to families sickened in Pearl Harbor fuel spill
May 8 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Hawaii ordered the U.S. government on Wednesday to pay about $600,000 to six families impacted by a 2021 fuel spill that tainted drinking water at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam near Honolulu after finding that the tainted water was the cause of their health problems. U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi's order came after she heard evidence during a 10-day bench trial that began in April 2024 over the families' claims they suffered from nausea, rashes, emotional trauma and in some cases seizures and tremors after they showered in and drank the tainted water. The trial, which involved claims of 17 people from six different families, was the first trial in the Red Hill litigation. The government and attorneys for the victims have agreed to use the judge's order to help determine the future of the more than 7,000 remaining claims. Attorneys for the six families had sought a little more than $6.5 million in damages in total for their pain and suffering, mental anguish and other harms, according to court records. Thousands of people, including active duty members of the military, their families and their civilian neighbors, have brought claims against the U.S. government under the Federal Tort Claims Act over the November 2021 spill, which released 19,000 gallons of jet fuel from Pearl Harbor's Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility into a water system serving both the base and neighboring homes. Those claims total about $156 billion, according to a Navy spokesperson. Kobayashi said the plaintiffs' experts had proved that the chemicals in the water after the spill had the capacity to cause the families' injuries. She also found that the chemicals had reached all parts of the Navy's water system. Kristina Baehr, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the case "sets the precedent that there's no institution that is immune from accountability for poisoning people." Baehr said she did not know of any other successful environmental contamination cases brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which governs lawsuits against the government over injuries caused by negligent or wrongful actions of federal employees. Representatives for the U.S. Navy directed a request for comment to the U.S. Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond. Before the trial, the government acknowledged that the incident at Red Hill, which has been in the process of shutting down, occurred when thousands of gallons of jet fuel were incorrectly shunted to a pipe and then released after a vehicle hit the pipe in November 2021. Although the government admitted that the fuel had reached parts of the water system, it disputed that the entire water system was affected or that the injuries the plaintiffs claimed were caused by the water.
The Independent
08-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Judge awards $680K to 17 families exposed to jet fuel-tainted water at Hawaii Naval base
A federal judge has awarded a total of more than $680,000 to 17 families who say they were sickened by a 2021 jet fuel leak into a Navy drinking water system in Hawaii. The bellwether cases set the legal tone for another 7,500 military family members, civilians and service members whose lawsuits are still awaiting resolution. U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi handed down the ruling Wednesday, awarding from $5,000 to more than $104,000 to each plaintiff. In her order, Kobayashi wrote that it was clear that even though the contaminated water could have caused many of the kinds of medical problems the military families experienced, there wasn't enough evidence to prove a direct link. The amount awarded to each of plaintiff was significantly smaller than the roughly $225,000 to $1.25 million that one of their attorneys, Kristina Baehr, requested during the two-week trial in federal court in Honolulu. As bellwether plaintiffs, the 17 were chosen because they were seen as representative of the thousands of other people whose cases are still pending. Baehr called the damage awards disappointing but said the families 'prevailed against all odds against the U.S. Government.' 'These families can be proud that they helped prove to the world what truly happened when the Navy poisoned the water supply near Pearl Harbor and sickened so many,' Baehr said in a press release. 'The Court rejected the Government's argument that thousands of our clients were just psychosomatic and that there was not enough fuel to make anyone sick.' Baehr said the legal team was reviewing options for resolving the thousands of remaining cases. The government admitted liability for the spill before the trial began, but its attorneys disputed whether the plaintiffs were exposed to enough jet fuel to cause the vomiting, rashes and other alleged negative health effects. The spill happened at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, a giant installation built in the early 1940s to supply the planes and ships crossing the Pacific Ocean. The installation includes a series of massive tanks — each roughly the height of a 25-story building, capable of holding 12.5 million gallons (47.3 million liters) — hidden inside caverns that the military excavated from a mountain ridge above Pearl Harbor. Underneath it all is an aquifer, equipped with wells that provided drinking water to the Navy and to the city of Honolulu. In May of 2021, a ruptured pipe allowed more than 20,000 gallons (75,700 liters) of fuel to spill into a fire suppression line. It remained unnoticed inside the sagging line for six months until a cart rammed the line, releasing the trapped fuel. Around Thanksgiving Day, much of that fuel flowed into a drain and drinking water well that supplied 90,000 people at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. A Navy investigation report released the following year found that military officials failed to immediately notify the state Department of Health, that the Navy missed four separate opportunities to activate emergency response plans to respond to the water contamination, and that the Navy told residents that the drinking water was safe without doing any laboratory analysis to confirm that was the case. Within a week of the spill, military families started complaining about health problems — including peeling skin, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea and other issues. The plaintiffs said they were left with ongoing health problems, including seizures, asthma, eczema and vestibular dysfunction. The spill sparked an outcry from lawmakers, environmental groups and residents, and the military eventually agreed to drain the tanks and close the facility. The tanks were drained last year.
Associated Press
08-05-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Judge awards $680K to 17 families exposed to jet fuel-tainted water at Hawaii Naval base
A federal judge has awarded a total of more than $680,000 to 17 families who say they were sickened by a 2021 jet fuel leak into a Navy drinking water system in Hawaii. The bellwether cases set the legal tone for another 7,500 military family members, civilians and service members whose lawsuits are still awaiting resolution. U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi handed down the ruling Wednesday, awarding from $5,000 to more than $104,000 to each plaintiff. In her order, Kobayashi wrote that it was clear that even though the contaminated water could have caused many of the kinds of medical problems the military families experienced, there wasn't enough evidence to prove a direct link. The amount awarded to each of plaintiff was significantly smaller than the roughly $225,000 to $1.25 million that their attorney, Kristina Baehr, requested during the two-week trial in federal court in Honolulu. As bellwether plaintiffs, the 17 were chosen because they were seen as representative of the thousands of other people whose cases are still pending. Baehr called the damage awards disappointing but said the families 'prevailed against all odds against the U.S. Government.' 'These families can be proud that they helped prove to the world what truly happened when the Navy poisoned the water supply near Pearl Harbor and sickened so many,' Baehr said in a news release. 'The Court rejected the Government's argument that thousands of our clients were just psychosomatic and that there was not enough fuel to make anyone sick.' Baehr said the legal team was reviewing options for resolving the thousands of remaining cases. The government admitted liability for the spill before the trial began, but its attorneys disputed whether the plaintiffs were exposed to enough jet fuel to cause the vomiting, rashes and other alleged negative health effects.
