The Burn Pits Made Him Sick. The Employer Said It Was Not Their Problem. They Were Wrong

The TV lawyer on the billboard does not know what a burn pit is. He does not know what the Defense Base Act covers. He has never been inside the Office of Administrative Law Judges. He cannot tell you the difference between a DBA claim and a workers’ compensation claim. He signs up contractors who came home sick from Kabul or Baghdad, hands the file to a secretary, and waits for a check that never comes because he does not know what he is doing. A real case decided by the Benefits Review Board shows you what it looks like when the fight is handled right and the contractor actually wins.

In Woolum v. Arma Aviation, decided by the U.S. Department of Labor Benefits Review Board, an aircraft mechanic went to work in Kabul, Afghanistan. Within a week or two of arriving he began having sinus pressure, congestion, and sleeping problems he initially thought were a cold. The symptoms got worse. By mid-April he could not breathe through his nose at any time. He described the feeling of suffocating in his sleep. The burn pits near his worksite and his hotel ran constantly. The doctors at the compound clinic diagnosed chronic sinusitis, pansinusitis, and vasomotor rhinitis. His own doctor said his vasomotor rhinitis was triggered by environmental pollution and that the condition explained the recurrence of his symptoms every time he traveled to Kabul. He had to have sinus surgery before it was over. He filed a DBA claim. The employer fought it hard. The ALJ awarded benefits. The employer appealed three times. The Board affirmed every award, including the attorney’s fee of over ninety-seven thousand dollars payable by the employer.

How A Burn Pit DBA Claim Actually Gets Won

This case was not won by accident. It was won because the proof was built right. Follow what the record shows. The claimant reported his symptoms to his supervisor. He sought treatment at the compound clinic while still in Kabul. He had multiple doctors documenting his condition in real time, not years later. When he left Kabul on leave his symptoms improved almost immediately. When he returned to Kabul they came back within days. That pattern, symptoms appear in Kabul, vanish when he leaves, return when he comes back, is exactly the kind of fact pattern that defeats the employer’s argument that the condition was pre-existing or unrelated to the work environment.

Under the DBA, a claimant invokes a legal presumption that his condition is work-related once he shows the injury and the employment. The employer has to rebut that presumption with substantial evidence. The employer brought in their own doctor who said the claimant’s problems were due to pre-existing, untreated sleep apnea and unrelated to Kabul. But that doctor had to concede at the hearing that pollution could have aggravated the pre-existing nasal congestion. And the ALJ had the real-time medical records from the compound, the before-and-after symptom pattern tied directly to presence in Kabul, the CT scans, the surgery. The employer’s hired expert, going up against that kind of documented record, had nothing.

What The Employer Is Counting On You Not Knowing

The employer and the insurance carrier are counting on the injured contractor to hire a lawyer who has never handled a DBA case. They are counting on a cold file, no real-time medical records from overseas, no documented symptom pattern, and a claimant who waited too long and whose story has gaps they can drive a truck through. They are not afraid of the billboard lawyer. They are afraid of somebody who knows this specific system, knows how the presumption works, knows how to build the causation record before it is too late, and knows how to keep the employer’s hired expert from walking away with the case on paper.

I am not going to hand the insurance defense bar a free manual on how Woolum was won. They already know. What they do not want is for you to know. I put the things that win and lose these claims in my free book. If you worked overseas as a contractor and came home sick, or if you were injured working on the water, read the book before you say a word to the insurance company or hire anybody.

You are not committed to anything by reading it. No phone call required. Get the book first.

If you were injured working as a contractor overseas or on the water on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, you can read more about how I handle a Mississippi longshore and DBA case. Workers based out of the Pascagoula and Ocean Springs area can also read about how I handle a Ocean Springs longshore case specifically. The case discussed here is Woolum v. Arma Aviation, BRB Nos. 24-0064, 25-0164, and 25-0193, decided by the U.S. Department of Labor Benefits Review Board. This article is commentary on a published administrative decision and general information, not legal advice about your situation.