The AFFF MDL settlement picture splits cleanly in two. Public water providers have already secured billions from manufacturers, with 3M agreeing to pay up to $12.5 billion and DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva together agreeing to $1.185 billion.13M. 3M Settlement with Public Water Suppliers to Address PFAS2PFAS Water Settlement. Frequently Asked Questions (DuPont) Personal injury claimants, though, are still waiting. As of early 2026, no global settlement for individual health claims has been finalized. Bellwether trials are underway in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, and a court-appointed special master is developing a framework to resolve the roughly 10,000 consolidated cases.3United States District Court District of South Carolina. Aqueous Film-Forming Foams (AFFF) Products Liability Litigation
Why the Water Provider Numbers Don’t Apply to Individuals
The headline settlement figures come from class actions brought by public water systems, not by people. In addition to 3M and DuPont, Tyco Fire Products (with Chemguard) and BASF entered separate agreements.4Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF) Products Liability Litigation. Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF) Products Liability Litigation Those funds pay for testing, monitoring, and cleanup of contaminated drinking water infrastructure. The money flows to municipal systems and utilities. Individual people do not receive money from those funds, even if they drank the contaminated water. If you have a personal health claim, you are in a separate track that has not yet reached settlement.
Where Personal Injury Claims Stand Right Now
The litigation is moving through bellwether trials, which are test cases designed to show how juries respond to the evidence. The first bellwether focuses on kidney cancer. Thyroid and liver cancer claims are further along in pretrial preparation, and ulcerative colitis cases are in earlier stages. Bellwether verdicts don’t create binding precedent for every case in the MDL, but they heavily shape settlement negotiations because defendants prefer to settle rather than face repeated juries.
Alongside the trials, a court-appointed special master is working with both sides on a settlement matrix. That kind of matrix assigns point values to claims based on diagnosis, exposure history, and other factors, with higher point totals producing higher settlement values. As of April 2026, the specific point values and tier amounts have not been publicly released. Anyone quoting you a firm dollar figure for a kidney cancer claim or a testicular cancer claim right now is speculating.
Which Medical Conditions Qualify
The court identified four conditions for the initial bellwether discovery pool:
- Kidney cancer
- Testicular cancer
- Thyroid disease, including hypothyroidism
- Ulcerative colitis
These four have the strongest epidemiological evidence linking them to PFAS exposure and are the focus of the earliest bellwether trials.5United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. MDL No. 2:18-mn-2873-RMG – Case Management Order No. 266United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. In Re: Aqueous Film-Forming Foams Products Liability Litigation – Case Management Order No. 33
The court’s amended Plaintiff Fact Sheet also collects data on liver cancer, thyroid cancer (distinct from non-cancerous thyroid disease), pregnancy-induced hypertension, and high cholesterol.7United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. Case Management Order No. 5G – Governing the Form and Procedure for the Completion of Amended Personal Injury Plaintiff Fact Sheets Liver cancer has advanced to the Science Day phase, where experts present causation evidence. Prostate cancer is reportedly under active evaluation. Appearing on the fact sheet does not guarantee a condition will qualify for settlement compensation, but it signals the court is taking those diagnoses seriously enough to gather information. A condition outside these lists doesn’t automatically kill a claim, but the initial four will almost certainly get the earliest and most favorable treatment.
What You Need to Document
Every personal injury claimant has to complete an Amended Personal Injury Plaintiff Fact Sheet, the court’s standardized intake form. Your attorney files it on your behalf, and the case management order defines what counts as “substantially complete.”7United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. Case Management Order No. 5G – Governing the Form and Procedure for the Completion of Amended Personal Injury Plaintiff Fact Sheets Incomplete forms trigger deficiency notices and stall the claim.
The fact sheet covers six main areas. You have to identify at least one location where you were exposed to AFFF-contaminated water or foam, with approximate dates; property deeds, utility bills, or lease agreements help confirm residency near contaminated sources. If you handled foam directly, the form asks about your role and how the exposure happened. For military service or firefighter work, it asks for branch, base assignments, and training exposure; the order does not mandate a DD214, but service records and employment documentation help substantiate what you report. Medical records establishing your qualifying diagnosis (pathology reports, oncology and gastroenterology records with clear diagnosis dates) are the backbone of the medical section. The form also asks whether you’ve had blood serum or tissue testing for PFAS levels and requests any related documents. Finally, you supply estimates of medical expenses, lost wages, and other losses, supported by bills, receipts, and employment records. Signed verifications and medical authorization forms are required.
How Long This Will Take
The honest answer is that timelines are uncertain. Bellwether trials are still working through the initial cancer claims. The settlement matrix is still being negotiated. No global agreement exists yet. Water provider settlements moved faster because they resolved as class actions; individual health claims require far more case-specific evaluation. Most personal injury claimants should expect years between filing and any payment.
Even after a settlement, payment isn’t immediate. Each claim goes through lien resolution, where government health programs and private insurers that paid for your treatment get reimbursed from your settlement before you receive the remainder. That step alone can take months.
What Actually Reaches Your Bank Account
Three things reduce the gross number your attorney might quote: taxes on any non-qualifying portion, government liens, and attorney fees.
Federal Taxes
Federal law excludes from gross income any damages received for personal physical injuries or physical sickness, as long as they aren’t punitive.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness Because AFFF personal injury claims are built on diagnosed physical conditions like cancer and ulcerative colitis, the compensatory portion should be excludable. A punitive damages component, if any, would be taxable. Talk to a tax professional once you know your award structure.
Medicare and Medicaid Liens
If Medicare paid for any of your PFAS-related treatment, it has a statutory right to recover those conditional payments from your settlement under the Medicare Secondary Payer rule.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1395y – Exclusions From Coverage and Medicare as Secondary Payer The recovery period runs from your first PFAS exposure through the date of your settlement. Medicare sends a Conditional Payment Letter listing what it paid and what it wants back. You can dispute items you believe aren’t related to your PFAS exposure, and attorney’s fees factor into the final calculation.10Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Medicare’s Recovery Process Interest starts accruing if you don’t repay within 60 days of receiving notice.
In a large MDL, a lien resolution administrator usually handles this across all claims, identifying liens, negotiating with Medicare and private insurers, and working to reduce the total. Your attorney pays the finalized lien from your settlement before sending you the balance. This step isn’t optional and can meaningfully cut into your net payout, especially after expensive cancer treatment.
Attorney Fees
Personal injury attorneys in this litigation typically work on contingency, taking a percentage of the recovery rather than billing hourly. Courts in large MDLs sometimes cap the percentage. Separately, MDL courts generally establish a common benefit fund to compensate the lawyers doing shared work (discovery, expert witnesses, trial preparation) for all plaintiffs. That common benefit assessment comes out of your attorney’s fee rather than being added to your bill. Ask your attorney upfront what your effective total fee percentage will be after the common benefit assessment, so you can estimate your net recovery.
Filing Deadlines
There is no single nationwide deadline for AFFF personal injury claims. Statutes of limitations are set by state law and generally range from two to five years for personal injury. The clock’s starting point matters as much as its length. Many states apply a discovery rule, which starts the period when you knew or should have known about your injury and its connection to PFAS exposure, rather than when the exposure itself happened. For long-latency diseases like cancer, that rule can meaningfully extend the filing window.
Waiting is still risky. A future global settlement could impose its own registration deadlines that shut out new claims. Some firms have already stopped accepting new AFFF cases while the settlement landscape develops, which narrows your options the longer you delay. If you have a qualifying diagnosis and a plausible exposure history, consult an attorney and file sooner rather than later. A missed statute of limitations is permanent.