Court Overturns Justice for National Guard Soldiers

Court overturns $85 million award for Oregon soldiers
AP
By Steven Dubois
May 14, 2015

A federal jury in Portland found KBR guilty of negligence after a three-week trial in late 2012. Each of the 12 soldiers was awarded $850,000 in noneconomic damages and $6.25 million in punitive damages.

PORTLAND, Ore. — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an $85 million jury award to a dozen Oregon National Guard soldiers who said they were sickened from guarding a water treatment plant during the Iraq War.

The military contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root successfully argued that Oregon was not the proper jurisdiction for the case. KBR is based in Houston, and similar cases filed by soldiers from Indiana, West Virginia and South Carolina are pending in federal court there.

“We are thrilled with the result; it is the right result and we look forward to a successful conclusion to this and all the legacy tort claims that relate to KBR’s work supporting the U.S. military in Iraq,” KBR attorney Geoffrey Harrison said by phone Thursday.
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