Jo Ann Hoffman, Esquire, our founding partner, (shown here with featured lecturer, Dr. Bruce Berkowitz) participated in the 2011 Defense Base Act Conference held at Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana. There, she met with fellow practitioners who devote themselves to helping private defense contractors who aid and assist the United States Military (Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force) in their missions throughout the world. Private defense contractors provide logistic support, technical support and other valued services to our military at bases, outposts, occupied territories, and on other missions on all seven continents.
The 2011 Defense Base Act Conference brought together some of the finest legal and medical minds from our nation and internationally so that they can help educate each other to better help those who are injured or killed while on assignment as military contractors. These cases present serious and complex legal issues that those attending the conference reviewed and discussed. The reach of the Defense Base Act is extraordinary. It is United States Federal Law and it applies all over our planet, applies to all kinds of injuries, and it applies to persons regardless of their nationality. As we reported in prior articles, a private military contractor can be a German or any other national working in Iraq for a company from Great Britain, but aiding the U.S. Army and he or she is protected by this law.
The types of injuries covered can range from a simple motor vehicle accident in Afghanistan where a defense contractor is just delivering food supplies to someone killed tragically by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) near Baghdad to someone providing translation service in Japan that is exposed to radiation. All necessary medical care and treatment can be secured through the help of an experienced Defense Base Act lawyer. Further, lost wages and other monetary benefits (even a possible settlement) can be received by an injured DBA claimant with the help of a Defense Base Act attorney.
The medical issues are profound as well. The injuries range from exposure to regional diseases or parasitic exposure endemic to a certain areas, through 'normal' orthopedic and neurological injuries, through to a much more catastrophic losses of limbs (amputation), paralysis, and even death. Emotional and psychiatric consequences also can play a role in these cases. Pretty much anything that can happen to the human body, can become a part of a Defense Base Act case.
Ms. Hoffman (shown here with the Hon. Lance Africk, a Federal Judge) devotes her energies, time, resources, and talent towards helping the injured and their families. Her passion is to help them get the best possible medical care and as much financial compensation as the laws allow. Please contact us with any questions, comments, or concerns that you may have as to whether you are entitled to the worldwide protection and the benefits of the Defense Base Act; and then let her and our entire team help you.
