Military personnel, local citizens, and civilian contract employees all have rights and deserve legal protection from U.S. war contractors, even in a combat zone.
Operating under U.S. contract in Afghanistan and Iraq, corporations such as KBR, Inc. (Kellogg, Brown and Root former subsidiary of Halliburton) and Blackwater (now known as Xe) can still be liable under U.S. law for cases of wrongful death, gross negligence, fraud, and abuse. Just because they operate in a dangerous area does not excuse a company from wrongful acts.
As with so many other corporations, when profits and expediency are prioritized over human well-being, people can get hurt or killed. Often in those cases the only remedy available is a lawsuit.
Lawsuits are by no means a panacea, and are often the venue of last resort. But sometimes lawsuits function as the best regulators. A lawsuit will not heal an injury or bring back a lost loved one, but the exercise of justice and the repayment for damage done can help victims and their families survive and put their lives back together as best as they can.
In a war zone, soldiers are prepared and trained to fight an enemy. Combat obviously entails inherent risk. The policy of the armed forces is to train individuals to put them at risk to insure our well-being. However, when a driver working for a defense contractor is sent unarmed and untrained into a known, active battlefield, this goes beyond any reasonable risk they may have signed up for on taking the job. If as part of a corporate policy, employees are sent into hazardous situations with not only no warning but also the implied promise of safety, this is not collateral damage or an unavoidable casualty. This is gross negligence. This can be wrongful death. And in our system, this act and this corporation may be only answerable to a lawsuit.
If a corporation exposes soldiers, employees and local citizens to hazardous, life-threatening chemicals in an open burn pit or dump area, regulators may not have power to do anything other than request a clean up or levy a fine. Victims often have to seek their own redress.
Similarly, if a soldier is electrocuted in a barracks shower because of improper wiring, or a contract employee suffers injury in a collapse of an inadequately constructed building, there may or may not be criminal wrongdoing, but the corporation behind the negligent building practice does face liability.
These are stories of incidents that have allegedly occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Though the rights of military personnel, civilian contract employees, or native citizens of the area may be obviously and notoriously violated, the area of law can be very complicated to litigate. Issues of immunity, military directive, and jurisdiction make these lawsuits very difficult to pursue. Investigation and establishment of the facts is no easy task for incidents that occurred in a war zone like Iraq and Afghanistan.
But there is hope for victims of injury and their families. Law firms like Fibich, Hampton and Leebron of Houston, Texas have successful experience in this area. A U.S. corporal was fatally wounded in 2005 assisting a Halliburton / KBR team in an unsuccessful towing effort while removing concrete barriers from an inactive base in Iraq. His family came to the law firm for help, and after an investigation into the facts the firm sued Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root. The case was settled confidentially.
In 2004, an unarmed convoy working for Halliburton's KBR was attacked. Six people were killed and fourteen were wounded. The survivors of the incident and the families of those lost allege that the company knew there was active fighting in the area and knew the convoy would be attacked. The matter is currently being litigated.
Whether we approve or not, corporations play a vital role in our modern military activity. Companies are profiting off of our wars and military reconstruction efforts. Unfortunately corporations are rarely adequate at policing themselves when it comes to protecting their employees.
As we grow more and more dependent on corporate contractors to participate in military actions, we need to safeguard the system under which their employees are protected as well as the rights of military men and women.
There is a justice system within the military built to deal with violations of military personnel. For U.S. corporations though, we rely on U.S. laws and regulations. There may be cause to involve the criminal courts, but corporate policies and behaviors that result in injury or death often end up in the civil justice system. There, actions rely on victims coming forward and filing suit on their own, with the help of their lawyers.
In our modern corporate run society the civil justice system is very often the only effective regulator. When corporations enter the battlefields, the civil justice system must be prepared to follow.
In the criminal system, prison sentences and fines are the deterrents that make the laws effective. In the civil system, monetary penalties not only aim to help the victims but also hopefully deter future acts and protect others from becoming victims themselves.
For more information, please visit http://www.fhl-iraq.com
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