If you developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after exposure to aqueous film-forming foam, you can file an AFFF lymphoma lawsuit, but you should know going in that lymphoma sits in a harder corner of this litigation than cancers like kidney or testicular. Claims are being accepted into the federal multidistrict litigation in South Carolina, no personal injury trials have happened yet, and the scientific evidence tying PFAS to lymphoma specifically is weaker than for the conditions the court has prioritized. That combination shapes everything about how your case will be handled.
Who Can File a Lymphoma Claim
The people filing AFFF cancer claims generally fall into a few groups: military firefighters, civilian firefighters, airport rescue workers, industrial employees who handled the foam, and people who lived near contaminated bases or airports and drank affected water.1Veterans Guide. AFFF Lawsuit Air Force personnel are heavily represented because AFFF was used extensively at Air Force installations for hangar fire suppression, runway emergencies, and live-fire training from the 1960s onward. The Department of Defense has identified 723 military installations where PFAS may have been used or released.2U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. PFAS Exposure and Your Health
To file, you typically need three things: medical records confirming your lymphoma diagnosis, documentation of AFFF or PFAS exposure through employment history or military service records, and an expert medical opinion connecting that exposure to your diagnosis.3PFAS Water Settlement. AFFF Products Liability Litigation Settlement AFFF cases are handled on a contingency basis, so there are no upfront costs, and attorney fees generally run from 33% to 40% of any recovery.
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is recognized within the broader scope of the MDL as a condition associated with PFAS exposure, and individual lawsuits alleging it have been filed. The CDC has identified non-Hodgkin lymphoma as one of three cancers linked to prolonged PFOA exposure. Some law firms that previously accepted AFFF lymphoma clients, however, have stopped doing so, which is a signal worth understanding before you call around.
Why Lymphoma Is a Harder Claim Than Other AFFF Cancers
Judge Richard Gergel, who oversees MDL 2873 in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, has focused pretrial proceedings on six health conditions where the court believes the strongest causation evidence exists: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, liver cancer, thyroid cancer, thyroid disease, and ulcerative colitis.4Lawsuit Information Center. AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuit Lymphoma is not on that list. The bellwether pool, the group of test cases designed to show how juries will respond and to drive settlement talks, is limited to plaintiffs with kidney cancer, testicular cancer, hypothyroidism, or ulcerative colitis.1Veterans Guide. AFFF Lawsuit
The science is the reason. When the International Agency for Research on Cancer upgraded PFOA to a Group 1 human carcinogen in 2023, the cancers cited as having “limited” human evidence were kidney and testicular. PFOS was classified as “possibly carcinogenic,” with human evidence deemed “inadequate.” Neither classification mentioned lymphoma.5International Agency for Research on Cancer. IARC Monographs Evaluate the Carcinogenicity of PFOA and PFOS
The lymphoma research that does exist is suggestive rather than conclusive:
- A 2025 systematic review of 14 studies in Cancer Epidemiology found a pooled relative risk of 1.15 for non-Hodgkin lymphoma among people with environmental or occupational PFAS exposure. The authors called the finding “suggestive of an association” while describing the overall evidence as weak.6ScienceDirect. Exposure to Per- and Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances and Hematological Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
- A 2023 case-cohort study published through the CDC found a positive association between the PFAS compound PFHxS and chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma in men, with a hazard ratio of 3.01 in the highest exposure quartile.7Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Case-Cohort Study of the Association between PFAS and Selected Cancers
- A 2024 National Cancer Institute nested case-control study of 706 B-cell NHL cases found no overall positive association between five common PFAS and B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, though PFHxS showed a statistically significant link to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in a mutually adjusted model.8PubMed. PFAS and B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
Firefighting itself was reclassified by IARC as a Group 1 carcinogen in 2022, and multiple studies have reported elevated rates of non-Hodgkin lymphoma among firefighters.9National Library of Medicine. Firefighter Cancer Risk and PFAS Exposure Review The National Cancer Institute has an ongoing case-control study examining pre-diagnostic PFAS blood levels and NHL risk, but results have not been published.10National Cancer Institute. PFAS Research
What this means practically: to win a lymphoma claim, your lawyers will have to establish general causation through expert testimony that can survive a Daubert challenge from the defense. The mixed epidemiological evidence makes that fight harder than it is for a kidney cancer plaintiff. Daubert challenges to expert testimony are expected to be a central battleground as the litigation moves toward trial.11Call FOB. AFFF Lawsuit Update
Filing Deadlines You Need to Know
Most states have a two-to-three-year statute of limitations for personal injury lawsuits. In toxic exposure cases, nearly every state applies a “discovery rule” that delays the clock until you knew or should have known that your injury was linked to the exposure. For most AFFF claimants, that means the limitations period did not start until the cancer diagnosis and the awareness of the PFAS connection.4Lawsuit Information Center. AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuit
Inside the MDL, Judge Gergel established a filing facilitation window that closed on September 5, 2025. That deadline triggered a surge of new filings and is widely viewed as a de facto cutoff for qualifying for any future global settlement. Cases filed after that date face stricter documentation requirements, including full medical records and a completed plaintiff fact sheet within 90 days of filing. If you have a lymphoma diagnosis and are considering a claim, the state-law statute of limitations is now the hard deadline, and the discovery rule analysis for your specific situation is something to confirm with a lawyer quickly rather than later.
What a Settlement or Verdict Could Look Like
As of early 2026, MDL 2873 contained roughly 19,800 total cases, with about 15,200 personal injury claims still pending.4Lawsuit Information Center. AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuit No personal injury bellwether trial has taken place. A kidney cancer trial scheduled for October 2025 was vacated after the surge of new filings overwhelmed the docket, and no new trial date has been confirmed as of mid-2026.12Drugwatch. AFFF Lawsuits A special master is working with the parties on a settlement matrix that would assign point values to claims based on factors like cancer type, exposure duration, and severity, but no global personal injury settlement has been reached.11Call FOB. AFFF Lawsuit Update
Industry estimates project individual payouts could range from $75,000 to $500,000 depending on cancer type, exposure duration, and case strength, but these are projections from comparable litigation, not actual AFFF results.12Drugwatch. AFFF Lawsuits Where a lymphoma case would land within that range, and whether lymphoma cases get included in the main settlement framework at all, remains unresolved.
One boundary to be clear about: the large water-system settlements already finalized do not pay personal injury claimants. 3M’s deal of up to $10.3 billion over 13 years, approved in March 2024, covers U.S. public water suppliers.13NACWA. 3M Gets Court Approval of $10 Billion PFAS Settlement The $1.185 billion DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva settlement announced in June 2023 explicitly excludes personal injury claims, and those companies have said they will “vigorously defend” individual cases.14Corteva. Chemours, DuPont, and Corteva Reach Comprehensive PFAS Settlement with US Water Systems Lymphoma claimants are waiting on either a separate global settlement of individual claims or bellwether trial results that would set a framework.
Separate Options for Veterans and Firefighters
If you are a veteran, you have a parallel route through the Department of Veterans Affairs, though it has limits. The VA currently recognizes no presumptive service connection for any PFAS-related condition, so you must prove on a case-by-case basis that your illness is connected to military service. That means medical records, service records documenting exposure, and a nexus letter from a physician.2U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. PFAS Exposure and Your Health The VA is reviewing the science on PFAS and kidney cancer under the PACT Act’s framework for establishing new presumptions, but no determination has been made, and lymphoma is not under active presumption review. VA disability claims are separate from civil lawsuits against manufacturers, and you can pursue both.
A pending federal bill, the Firefighter PFAS Injury Compensation Act of 2024, would create a federal compensation program for firefighters with qualifying PFAS-related conditions. It offers a base award of $250,000 for cancer and $50,000 for non-cancer conditions, and covers kidney, testicular, liver, prostate, bladder, pancreatic, breast, colon, and ovarian cancers, along with thyroid disease and ulcerative colitis. Lymphoma is not specifically named, though the bill allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to add conditions.15U.S. House of Representatives. Firefighter PFAS Injury Compensation Act The bill has not been enacted.
A lymphoma claim in this litigation is real, but it is slower, harder, and less predictable than a claim for one of the court’s six core conditions. The sooner you have a lawyer evaluating your exposure history, your diagnosis records, and your state’s discovery-rule timing, the more options you preserve.