Military families whose drinking water became contaminated with jet fuel in 2021 on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, have won their cases against the U.S. Navy, with a federal judge confirming Thursday that the residents were exposed to an environmental hazard and sickened by it.
U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi said that under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the Navy was liable for the spill at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility near Honolulu and should pay damages for pain and suffering -- and, in some cases, future medical expenses and economic loss -- to the families.
"By a preponderance of the evidence, the court finds and concludes that [the] defendant is liable under the [Federal Tort Claims Act] and with the application of Hawaii law," Kobayashi wrote in her opinion issued Wednesday.
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As many as 93,000 people were exposed to jet fuel and other contaminants in their military residences over Thanksgiving in 2021 after a pipe ruptured at the Red Hill fuel tank farm, sending up to 5,000 gallons of fuel into a nearby well that supplied drinking water to the base and elsewhere.
Following the spill, families were not immediately notified, and when they began complaining about the smell as well as symptoms such as rashes, nausea, vomiting, headaches and other problems, Navy officials told them the contamination was minimal.
It was later revealed that the fuel was in the pipe as a result of a massive spill in May.
The lawsuit alleged the Navy was negligent in preventing and handling the public health crisis that occurred as a result of the spill, saying it failed to announce the leak in a timely manner and efforts to flush out the contamination did more harm.
It also said the government failed to provide appropriate medical care to families.
The original case, Feindt v. United States, was filed in August 2022. Since then, two additional lawsuits have been filed, representing more than 7,500 service members, military dependents and civilian residents across the cases.
During the Feindt trial, which took place in April 2024, Kobayashi heard testimony from 17 families, known as "bellwether plaintiffs" because they represented individuals across the suits.
Under the judge's ruling, the 17 were awarded damages for pain and suffering, medical expenses and, in one case, economic damages.
"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," Kristina Baehr, an attorney with Just Well Law, said in a statement Thursday. "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."
The spill and its aftermath led the Navy to shut the facility and remove the fuel from its storage tanks. In all, the service relocated 104 million gallons of jet fuel and diesel from Red Hill and is moving forward with reactivating the water supply system in the area.
The cost of the facility's cleanup and closure has been more than $2 billion, according to government reports.
Altogether, the families were awarded a total of $540,500 in various amounts for emotional distress, while several families received awards totaling $38,489.15 for future medical expenses and plaintiff Patrick Feindt received $2,144 for economic damages.
Each family also received $1,000 each for "loss of enjoyment of life," according to court documents.
In a release, attorneys for the plaintiffs called the awards "disappointing," but added that they were "a step forward in our clients' pursuit of justice."
Army Major Mandy Feindt, whose husband Patrick Feindt was the lead plaintiff in the original case, said Thursday that the ruling held the Navy liable and "put the Defense Department on notice."
"You can no longer poison our people and get away with it," Feindt said in a statement to Military.com. "If this crisis tells us nothing else, it should be that our warfighters cannot be 'mission ready' if they are sick or if the military is making their family sick."
The two other cases, Jessica Whaley et al. v. United States, which represents active-duty personnel who say they were harmed by the spill, and Hughes et al. v. United States, also are pending in Hawaii federal court.
The ruling Wednesday is likely to weigh heavily on the outcomes of the other cases and for the 7,500 claims filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The Department of Justice, which represented the federal government in the Feindt case, declined to comment on the decision, citing ongoing litigation.
Related: 1,000 More Pearl Harbor Area Residents Join Lawsuit over Red Hill Fuel Spill
