3M PFAS Lawsuit: $10.3B Settlement, Pending Cases, and Status

The 3M PFAS lawsuit landscape now spans a $10.3 billion public water systems settlement, a proposed $450 million deal with New Jersey, more than 15,000 pending personal injury cases in federal court, a new enforcement action from Minnesota, and a roughly $1.4 billion claim from the Australian government. 3M has stopped manufacturing PFAS but continues to face liability for decades of production of the “forever chemicals” used in Scotchgard, food packaging, and firefighting foam.

The $10.3 Billion Public Water Systems Settlement

In June 2023, 3M agreed to a pre-tax present value of $10.3 billion, capped nominally at $12.5 billion, to resolve a nationwide class action brought by public water suppliers whose systems had been contaminated with PFAS. Payments run for 13 years, from 2024 through 2036.¹ It is the largest drinking water settlement in American history.² Judge Richard M. Gergel of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina granted final approval on March 29, 2024. 3M did not admit liability.³

Who Qualifies

The deal covers any U.S. public water system that has detected PFAS at any level or that may detect it in the future. Transient systems and very small non-community systems are excluded.⁴

The money is split into two phases. Phase One allocates $6.875 billion to systems with documented PFAS contamination as of June 2023. Phase Two sets aside between $3.625 billion and $5.625 billion for systems that had not yet detected PFAS but are required to test under EPA rules or serve more than 3,300 people.⁴

How Payments Are Calculated

A court-appointed special master and claims administrator oversee disbursements. Individual awards use EPA-derived formulas that weigh the volume of contaminated water, the concentration of PFAS detected, and the capital and maintenance costs of treatment. Systems that had already sued 3M or served as bellwether plaintiffs receive upward adjustments, as do systems exceeding state or federal maximum contaminant levels. Every claimant must perform baseline PFAS testing and submit results; failure to do so disqualifies a system from payment.⁴

Deadlines and Money Flowing

The settlement administrator has distributed an estimated $3 billion to eligible Phase One claimants, with annual payments scheduled through 2033.⁵ Phase Two claims deadlines extend through July 2026, and supplemental fund claims can be filed as late as December 31, 2030.⁶

3M was not the only defendant. DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva agreed to a separate $1.185 billion fund for public water systems, and Tyco Fire Products and BASF reached their own settlements, all approved by the court.⁷⁶ A revision negotiated by 23 state attorneys general preserved states’ right to sue 3M independently.⁸

Personal Injury Cases: More Than 15,000 Pending

The water systems deal did not resolve claims from people who say PFAS exposure made them sick. Those cases are consolidated in the same South Carolina federal court under MDL 2873, and as of May 2026 there were 15,232 pending actions.⁹ Plaintiffs include firefighters, military veterans, airport and industrial workers, and people who drank contaminated tap water near facilities that used aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF).¹⁰

The court has focused the litigation on six health conditions: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, and liver cancer.¹¹ Twenty-eight bellwether cases are in discovery, covering kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, and ulcerative colitis.⁹ A bellwether trial set for October 2025 was taken off the calendar after Judge Gergel issued a case management order to standardize proof requirements and vet the backlog of filings. A new date had not been set as of mid-2026, though legal observers anticipate bellwether trials could take place later in the year.¹⁰

No global personal injury settlement has been reached. Projected individual claim values range from $200,000 to more than $1 million depending on the severity of the condition.⁹

The Government Contractor Defense

One argument running through the AFFF cases is whether 3M can shield itself from liability for foam it manufactured to U.S. military specifications. In September 2022, Judge Gergel denied 3M summary judgment on the government contractor defense in MDL 2873, ruling that the military’s AFFF specification was a “performance spec” that let manufacturers choose their own chemical formulations. Less toxic six-carbon alternatives also met the specification, meaning 3M was not compelled to use the more harmful eight-carbon compounds like PFOS.¹² The court also found evidence that 3M withheld information it internally described as showing PFOS to be “insidiously toxic” and “VERY persistent” until 2000.¹³

The issue is not fully resolved. In state cases brought by Maryland and South Carolina, 3M argued that because PFAS from different sources commingle in the environment, even non-AFFF contamination is “plausibly attributable” to its military foam production. In March 2025, the Fourth Circuit vacated lower-court orders returning the cases to state court, directing the district courts to consider whether 3M had raised a plausible federal defense. A conflicting Ninth Circuit ruling rejected that reasoning, creating a circuit split that 3M has asked the Supreme Court to resolve.¹⁴

State Lawsuits and Settlements

Minnesota

3M produced PFAS at its Chemolite facility in Cottage Grove and disposed of waste at four sites in the east metro area starting in the 1950s. The resulting groundwater plume covers more than 150 square miles and has affected the drinking water of over 140,000 residents.¹⁵

In February 2018, Minnesota settled its 2010 lawsuit against 3M for $850 million, leaving roughly $720 million for drinking water and natural resource projects after legal expenses.¹⁶ The money has funded six new or expanded water treatment plants, new public wells, treatment of more than two dozen existing wells, connections for 296 homes to municipal water, and individual filtration systems for nearly 1,000 homeowners with contaminated private wells.¹⁷ By June 2025, the state had spent about $238 million. Rising construction costs and tightened health standards have pushed projected depletion of the funds to 2027.¹⁸

In May 2026, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency filed a new lawsuit in Washington County District Court alleging the Cottage Grove facility continues to discharge PFAS into groundwater and the Mississippi River in violation of state permits. The complaint identifies 47 industrial and stormwater outfalls and a “previously undisclosed discharge” that 3M revealed to regulators in 2020 and that the state says has not been stopped.¹⁹ The state seeks civil penalties of up to $30,000 per violation per day, court-ordered expansion of 3M’s groundwater extraction system, and natural resource damages. 3M has moved to transfer the case to federal court and argues it bears no liability for contamination linked to AFFF produced under military specifications. The company says it has invested roughly $300 million in an advanced wastewater treatment system at the facility.²⁰

New Jersey

In May 2025, New Jersey’s attorney general and Department of Environmental Protection announced a proposed settlement of up to $450 million over 25 years to address statewide PFAS contamination, focused heavily on the Chambers Works site in Salem County, a Chemours-owned facility to which 3M historically supplied PFAS. First-year payments include $43.45 million for natural resource damages at Chambers Works, $16.55 million for PFAS abatement and drinking water treatment, and $40 million for legal costs and punitive damages.²¹ 3M recorded a pre-tax charge of about $285 million for the settlement in the second quarter of 2025.²² The agreement is not an admission of liability and was still moving through public comment and court approval as of late 2025.²³

Alabama

3M admitted violating a 2009 EPA order by discharging PFAS from its Decatur plant into the Tennessee River. In 2019, the company paid $35 million to a local water utility to fund a new filtration facility.²⁴ A $98.4 million settlement with the City of Decatur, Morgan County, and Decatur Utilities followed in 2021, funding a replacement recreational facility ($35 million), landfill remediation ($22.2 million), direct payments to local governments ($25 million), and future sludge disposal ($7 million).²⁵

Australia’s $1.4 Billion Lawsuit

On May 28, 2026, the Australian government announced what it called its largest-ever lawsuit, seeking roughly A$2 billion (about $1.4 billion USD) from 3M over PFAS contamination at 28 Department of Defence sites where AFFF was used. The government alleges 3M knew about the environmental risks of AFFF but “withheld and misrepresented that information.”²⁶ The Department of Defence has already spent A$817 million on remediation. Attorney General Michelle Rowland framed the case as a willingness to “take on one of the biggest multinational corporations in the world.”²⁷ 3M has said it will challenge the claims, noting it never manufactured PFAS in Australia and stopped selling AFFF there two decades ago.

3M’s Exit From PFAS Manufacturing

In December 2022, 3M announced it would stop manufacturing all PFAS by the end of 2025, a process the company estimated would generate $1.3 billion to $2.3 billion in pre-tax charges. At the time, annual PFAS-related sales were about $1.3 billion.²⁸

According to 3M’s February 2026 annual report, the company completed the exit on schedule.²⁹ The picture is more complicated than that headline. 3M still produces roughly 14,000 products that contain PFAS sourced from third-party suppliers, including materials used in lithium-ion batteries, printed circuit boards, and certain seals and gaskets where substitutes are not yet available. The company has removed PFAS from about 7,000 products over three years, but 139 types of PFAS remain in its product lines, and 29 of those types are unidentified because of vendor trade secrets. Sales of PFAS inventory more than doubled in 2025 compared to 2024 as 3M sold off remaining stock.³⁰ 3M continues to operate water treatment systems at former manufacturing sites to address legacy contamination.³¹

Military Veterans and Firefighters

A significant portion of the MDL 2873 cases involve military firefighters and service members exposed to AFFF. The Department of Defense began using PFAS-based firefighting foam in the 1970s and has identified 723 installations where the chemicals may have been used or released. The DOD planned to phase out PFAS-containing AFFF by October 2025.³²

Veterans seeking VA benefits face an obstacle: the VA has not established any presumptive service connection for PFAS-related conditions, so each claim must be individually documented with service records, medical diagnoses, and a physician’s nexus letter linking exposure to illness. A formal review is underway to determine whether kidney cancer should receive presumptive status for PFAS-exposed veterans under the PACT Act process.³² Separately, veterans and firefighters can pursue civil claims against AFFF manufacturers like 3M through the MDL.⁹

Where Things Stand

The water systems settlement is disbursing payments and processing Phase Two claims through July 2026, with supplemental filings possible through the end of 2030. The personal injury docket keeps growing, bellwether trials are expected in 2026 or 2027, and the outcomes there will likely shape whether 3M pursues a global resolution. New state enforcement in Minnesota and the Australian federal claim mean that even with PFAS manufacturing shut down, the legal exposure from a half-century of production continues to widen.

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