AFFF Lawsuit Update: Bellwether Delay, Settlements, Who Can File

The AFFF lawsuit update as of mid-2026 is that the federal multidistrict litigation over aqueous film-forming foam remains stuck in pretrial proceedings. No personal injury bellwether trial has taken place, no global settlement exists for individual cancer claims, and the first test trial that had been set for October 2025 was vacated. Public water utilities, by contrast, have already secured more than $12 billion from manufacturers in a separate track that is now largely resolved.

Where the MDL Stands

All federal AFFF cases are consolidated in MDL 2873 before Judge Richard M. Gergel in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.¹ Roughly 15,200 personal injury cases remain pending out of nearly 19,800 that have appeared on the docket since the litigation began.² The gap reflects cases that have been dismissed, closed, or transferred.

The MDL is not a class action. Every plaintiff keeps an individual claim, and any eventual compensation will turn on that person’s diagnosis, exposure history, and evidence.³

Why the First Bellwether Trial Was Postponed

Bellwether trials are test cases meant to signal how juries will respond to the evidence, and they often trigger settlement talks. The first personal injury bellwether in this MDL was scheduled for October 2025 and expected to involve a kidney cancer claim. On August 15, 2025, Judge Gergel issued Case Management Order No. 35 vacating that trial date and all related deadlines.⁴

A surge in new case filings had overwhelmed the court’s administrative capacity. Judge Gergel chose to vet the flood of new complaints and confirm they met basic evidentiary thresholds before pushing any case to a jury.⁵ No replacement trial date has been set. Rescheduling is anticipated for mid-2026 or later, depending on how expert discovery and Daubert challenges resolve.⁶

The Expert Testimony Fight

Before any trial can proceed, both sides must survive challenges to their scientific experts under the federal Daubert standard, which requires that expert testimony rest on reliable methodology. This fight over causation is now the central battleground.

In June 2025, the court held two “Science Day” sessions where plaintiff attorneys presented evidence on thyroid and liver cancer causation to Judge Gergel.² Expert reports on those cancers were exchanged in fall 2025. In October 2025, Judge Gergel ordered the parties to propose a schedule for expert depositions and Daubert motions by December 2025.⁶ Judge Gergel had denied an earlier Daubert challenge by 3M in May 2023 that sought to exclude plaintiffs’ causation experts, a ruling that kept the personal injury track alive.

The Court’s Docket Cleanup

With nearly 20,000 cases on file, the court has moved aggressively to weed out claims without proper documentation. Two orders define the effort.

CMO 35, issued in August 2025, created a 21-day “Filing Facilitation Window” that let plaintiffs’ lawyers file batches of up to 150 cases using a simplified short-form complaint.⁴ The trade-off was strict proof requirements. Every plaintiff must show a qualifying diagnosis, complete fact sheets submitted through the court’s electronic portal, and documentation of how they were exposed, whether through contaminated drinking water, occupational contact with AFFF, or firefighting turnout gear.

CMO 37, filed in February 2026, built the enforcement mechanism. Defendants can serve lists of plaintiffs who haven’t produced required paperwork. Those plaintiffs then have 14 days to fix the problem. If they don’t, defendants can move to dismiss.⁷ Cases filed before March 1, 2025, can be dismissed with prejudice, meaning permanently. Cases filed after that date can be dismissed without prejudice, leaving open the possibility of refiling, but only directly into the MDL and under strict conditions. If you have an active AFFF claim, this is the deadline your lawyer should be tracking.

Settlement Talks and Projected Values

There is no global settlement for personal injury claims. A special master identified as Judge Phillips was appointed in October 2022 to facilitate negotiations between plaintiff leadership and defendants.⁶ The special master has been working on a settlement matrix, a points-based system that would value claims by weighting factors like diagnosis and exposure. Mediation continues, though progress has reportedly been slowed by the volume of unfiled or unvetted claims.

Attorneys involved have projected that a global resolution could arrive in 2026 or 2027, though the timeline is far from certain.⁸ Without a completed bellwether verdict to anchor jury value, defendants have limited incentive to meet plaintiffs’ numbers.

Projected Settlement Tiers

No settlement amounts are confirmed. Legal analysts have published estimated ranges based on comparable toxic exposure cases, generally following a three-tier structure:

Tier 1, $200,000 to $600,000: plaintiffs with long-term occupational exposure and diagnoses of kidney or pancreatic cancer.
Tier 2, $150,000 to $300,000: plaintiffs with significant exposure and diagnoses of testicular cancer or other cancers closely linked to PFAS.
Tier 3, $20,000 to $75,000: plaintiffs with less direct exposure evidence or conditions where the causal link is weaker.

These are projections, not guarantees. Actual payouts, if they occur, will depend on the individual case, the outcome of any bellwether trials, and the terms of any negotiated resolution.⁹

Water Utility Settlements Already Approved

While personal injury claimants wait, public water utilities have already reached settlements totaling more than $12 billion. These deals are entirely separate from the personal injury track and resolve claims that PFAS from AFFF contaminated municipal drinking water supplies. All four have received final approval from Judge Gergel.¹⁰

3M: up to $10.3 billion in present value, with a $12.5 billion nominal cap, paid over 13 years. Final approval was granted on March 29, 2024.¹¹
DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva: $1.185 billion announced June 2, 2023, with final approval after a fairness hearing on December 14, 2023. Chemours paid roughly half, DuPont about $400 million, and Corteva about $193 million.¹²
Tyco Fire Products and Chemguard: $750 million, with an initial $250 million payment made in June 2024.¹³
BASF: $312.5 million, paid in full in March 2025.¹⁴

None of these water settlements resolve individual personal injury claims or state attorney general lawsuits over natural resource contamination.¹⁵ If you have seen news of a “$10 billion PFAS settlement,” that money is going to water systems, not to people with cancer diagnoses.

Who Can File a Personal Injury Claim

The personal injury litigation centers on people exposed to AFFF through work or contaminated drinking water who later developed a qualifying health condition. The most directly affected populations are civilian and military firefighters, airport crash-rescue crews, and workers at industrial facilities where AFFF was routinely used.¹⁶ People who lived near military bases or other sites where AFFF was regularly deployed may also qualify if PFAS contaminated their water or soil.

The conditions being tracked through the bellwether process include:

Kidney cancer
Testicular cancer
Liver cancer
Thyroid cancer and thyroid disease
Ulcerative colitis

Some plaintiffs’ attorneys also accept claims involving bladder cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, and pancreatic cancer, though causation evidence varies by condition.¹⁷ Statutes of limitations vary by state, and missing your state’s deadline forfeits the claim permanently.

The Defendants and the Kidde-Fenwal Bankruptcy

More than a dozen companies are named as defendants, spanning manufacturers of both the foam and the PFAS chemicals it contains. The principal defendants include 3M, DuPont, Chemours, Corteva, Tyco Fire Products, Chemguard, BASF, and Arkema. Others include Carrier Global Corporation, Dynax Corporation, Chubb National Foam, Kidde-Fenwal, Clariant Corporation, UTC Fire and Security Americas, and AGC Chemicals Americas.¹⁸

Many defendants deny that PFAS in AFFF causes cancer, and 3M has argued the scientific link remains unproven. Kidde-Fenwal filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2023, citing the volume of AFFF claims.³ Kidde-Fenwal’s parent company, Carrier Global, proposed a plan under which it would pay creditors $540 million over five years in exchange for a release from all PFAS-related claims. In May 2025, attorneys general from Connecticut, California, New York, and several other states objected, arguing the plan improperly shields a non-bankrupt parent from liability under the Supreme Court’s Purdue Pharma ruling that struck down similar third-party releases.¹⁹

Military Veterans

The Department of Defense began using AFFF to fight fuel fires in the 1970s. Decades of use in training and emergencies contaminated groundwater at hundreds of installations. The DOD has identified 723 sites where PFAS may have been used or released.²⁰

Veterans who believe their health problems are connected to AFFF exposure can pursue two separate tracks: a VA disability compensation claim and participation in the civil litigation against manufacturers. The two processes are independent.²¹ The VA does not currently recognize any condition as presumptively connected to PFAS exposure, so veterans must prove service connection case by case with medical records and a physician’s opinion. The VA has said it is reviewing scientific evidence on a possible link between PFAS exposure and kidney cancer under a formal process tied to the PACT Act.²⁰

1
U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. MDL 2873 Information Page
2
Keefe Law Firm. AFFF Settlement Progress: What’s Happening in the Courts
3
TorHoerman Law. Which AFFF Manufacturers Are Named in the AFFF Lawsuits
4
U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. Case Management Order No. 35
5
Keefe Law Firm. AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuit
6
CallFOB. AFFF Lawsuit Update
7
Robert King Law Firm. AFFF MDL PFAS Water Contamination CMO 37
8
MDL Update. Aqueous Film Forming Foams MDL 2873
9
TorHoerman Law. AFFF Lawsuit Settlement Amounts
10
PFAS Water Settlement. PFAS Water Settlement Home Page
11
3M Investor Relations. 3M Settlement With Public Water Suppliers to Address PFAS
12
DuPont. Chemours, DuPont and Corteva Reach Comprehensive PFAS Settlement With U.S. Water Systems
13
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Tyco Fire Products SEC Filing
14
BASF. Risks From Litigation
15
Association of State Drinking Water Administrators. Judge Approves Settlement Requiring DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva to Pay $1.1 Billion in PFAS Contamination Suit
16
TruLaw. How to File an AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuit
17
TruLaw. AFFF Lawsuit Firefighting Foam Lawsuit
18
TruLaw. Which AFFF Manufacturers Are Named in the AFFF Lawsuits
19
State of Connecticut Office of the Attorney General. Attorney General Tong Objects to Kidde-Fenwal Bankruptcy Deal
20
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. PFAS Exposures
21
Hill and Ponton. Fire Fighting Foam: Deadly in the End