AFFF Ulcerative Colitis Lawsuit: Bellwethers, Deadlines, and Settlements

If you developed ulcerative colitis after exposure to aqueous film-forming foam or PFAS-contaminated water, the AFFF ulcerative colitis lawsuit is currently proceeding as part of federal multidistrict litigation MDL 2873 in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, before Judge Richard M. Gergel. As of mid-2026, roughly 15,232 cases are pending across all injury types, ulcerative colitis is one of four bellwether tracks, no personal injury cases have gone to trial, and no personal injury settlements have been reached.¹²

Who Can File a Claim

Two things have to be true: documented exposure to AFFF or PFAS-contaminated water, and a medical diagnosis of ulcerative colitis. The categories of people most commonly filing include firefighters (municipal, airport, military, and industrial) who handled AFFF directly; military service members, particularly Air Force and Navy, exposed during training or at bases where the foam was used; airport and industrial workers who deployed it; and civilians who lived near military bases or airports where AFFF contaminated local drinking water.³

To back a claim you generally need medical records confirming the diagnosis, employment or service records showing your role, and evidence that AFFF was used at your workplace or contaminated your community’s water supply. These are individual lawsuits, not a class action; each plaintiff’s exposure, diagnosis, and damages are evaluated separately, even though the cases share pretrial procedures.³

Where Ulcerative Colitis Cases Stand in the MDL

Ulcerative colitis is one of six core injury categories in MDL 2873, alongside kidney cancer, testicular cancer, liver cancer, thyroid cancer, and thyroid disease. It’s one of four conditions selected for the bellwether process, where representative cases are prepared for trial to help both sides gauge the evidence and frame settlement talks.⁴ Twenty-eight personal injury bellwethers have been selected in total: four ulcerative colitis, eight kidney cancer, eight testicular cancer, and eight thyroid disease.²

The ulcerative colitis track has moved slowly. James Zajicek was the first Tier 2 bellwether plaintiff and has advanced to expert discovery.⁵⁶⁷

The first personal injury bellwether trial, expected to involve a kidney cancer plaintiff, had been set for October 2025 and was removed from the calendar. As of mid-2026, no new trial date has been announced, and no ulcerative colitis case has reached trial.²⁸ Attorneys involved in the litigation anticipate that a global personal injury resolution could come in 2026 or 2027, depending on how the bellwethers unfold.

Contamination Sites Behind the Bellwether Cases

The four ulcerative colitis bellwethers are tied to specific AFFF contamination sites. If your exposure came from somewhere else, it doesn’t disqualify you from filing, but these are the locations the court is using to build the test cases:

Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, where groundwater contamination reached the communities of Security, Widefield, and Fountain. A 2020 ATSDR exposure assessment found elevated PFAS in residents’ blood, and a 2022 CDC report found blood concentrations in the Security-Widefield area up to 6.8 times higher than national averages.⁹¹⁰
Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, near Peterson AFB, identified as a source of AFFF contamination.¹⁰
Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, where past AFFF use contaminated groundwater in Horsham and surrounding townships.¹¹
Naval Air Warfare Center Warminster, Pennsylvania, where private wells in Warminster, Ivyland, and nearby townships tested positive for PFAS.¹¹

The Science Defendants Are Contesting

Whether the courts accept the causation evidence for ulcerative colitis matters more than any other single factor in this track, because defendants are actively challenging it. A study of more than 32,000 adults in the Mid-Ohio Valley with high PFOA levels from contaminated drinking water found a significant, dose-dependent association between cumulative PFOA exposure and ulcerative colitis. No similar association was found for Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, or lupus.¹²

A 2023 study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology examined 300 serum samples from 75 military service members and found higher PFAS levels were associated with substantially increased odds of ulcerative colitis, with the association holding at time points up to ten years before diagnosis. The odds ratio was 1.76 per unit increase in PFAS mixture decile for samples taken within one year of diagnosis.¹³

A 2022 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report classified the PFAS–ulcerative colitis link as having “limited or suggestive evidence of an association,” one tier below the “sufficient evidence” the committee found for conditions like kidney cancer.¹⁴ Daubert challenges to plaintiff expert witnesses in the personal injury track have not yet been resolved, and how the court rules on those challenges will shape what ulcerative colitis plaintiffs can prove.¹⁵

What Existing Settlements Do and Don’t Cover

Large settlement figures reported in the news are for water contamination claims brought by public water suppliers, not for personal injuries. None of that money goes to individuals with ulcerative colitis or any other health condition.

3M agreed to pay up to $10.3 billion (with a nominal cap of $12.5 billion over 13 years) to public water systems that detected PFAS, with final court approval in March 2024.¹⁶ DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva collectively agreed to $1.185 billion, approved in February 2024. Tyco Fire Products agreed to $750 million and BASF to $316.5 million, both approved in November 2024, again for public water contamination.¹

Because no personal injury cases have settled or gone to verdict, any numbers you see for ulcerative colitis settlements are projections. Ulcerative colitis is generally classified as a non-cancerous condition in this litigation, placing it in a lower tier than kidney or testicular cancer. Attorney estimates for personal injury claims across all conditions have ranged from $200,000 to over $1 million depending on severity.² For ulcerative colitis specifically, some legal sources have estimated as low as $20,000 to $100,000, others up to $600,000 or more for stronger cases.¹⁷ These are comparisons to other mass tort outcomes, not results in this case.

Filing Deadlines and What Happens if You File Now

Judge Gergel ordered attorneys to file outstanding claims by September 5, 2025. New lawsuits can still be filed after that deadline, but they face an accelerated pretrial schedule: complete medical records and a fact sheet within 90 days of filing, and expert witness disclosures within 120 days.¹⁸

Statutes of limitations vary by state and can be as short as one year from diagnosis in some jurisdictions, so waiting can permanently close the door regardless of what the MDL is doing.

Veterans and the VA

The VA disability process is separate from the federal lawsuit, and one does not substitute for the other. The Department of Veterans Affairs does not currently recognize ulcerative colitis as a presumptive condition for PFAS exposure, so benefits are not automatic based on service history alone.¹⁹ Each claim is decided case by case, and a veteran needs a medical nexus opinion linking the diagnosis to in-service PFAS exposure. The VA rates ulcerative colitis under diagnostic code 7323, with ratings from 10% to 100% based on symptom severity.²⁰

The Department of Defense has identified 723 installations where PFAS may have been used or released, and the military has phased out AFFF for training with plans to end its use entirely. The VA’s official position is that the overall scientific evidence linking PFAS to specific health conditions remains inconclusive, though the agency is reviewing the data as required under the PACT Act.¹⁹

The Kidde-Fenwal Bankruptcy

Kidde-Fenwal, a Carrier Global subsidiary that manufactured AFFF, filed for Chapter 11 in May 2023 after being named in over 4,400 PFAS lawsuits.¹ In October 2024, Carrier reached a $730 million settlement covering its fire protection unit. A proposed bankruptcy plan that would release Carrier from remaining PFAS liability drew objections from six state attorneys general in May 2025, who argued the plan improperly shields a non-debtor parent from liability without creditor consent.²¹ How that proceeding resolves will affect what personal injury claimants can recover from Kidde-Fenwal and Carrier specifically; other defendants, including 3M, DuPont, Chemours, Corteva, Tyco, and BASF, remain in the MDL.²²

1
ConsumerNotice.org. PFAS Lawsuit
2
MDL Update. MDL 2873 – Aqueous Film Forming Foams
3
TorHoerman Law. AFFF Ulcerative Colitis Lawsuit
4
Lawsuit Information Center. AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuit
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U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. Case Management Order 26N
6
AboutLawsuits.com. Additional AFFF Ulcerative Colitis Lawsuits Bellwether Discovery Pool
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Nigh Goldenberg Raso & Vaughn. Case Management Order 26K
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Drugwatch. AFFF Lawsuit
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Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. PFAS Sites Map – Region 8
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The New Lede. After Historic Drinking Water Settlements, PFAS Personal Injury Lawsuits Loom
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Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. PFAS Sites Map – Region 3
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13
National Center for Biotechnology Information. Per- and Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Exposure Is Associated With Later Occurrence of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
14
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Guidance on PFAS Exposure, Testing, and Clinical Follow-Up
15
CallFOB. AFFF Lawsuit Update
16
3M. 3M Settlement With Public Water Suppliers to Address PFAS
17
TruLaw. AFFF Ulcerative Colitis Lawsuit
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AboutLawsuits.com. AFFF Lawsuit Lawyers Must Submit Unfiled Claims or Face Restrictions
19
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. PFAS Exposures
20
Asbestos Ships. AFFF Ulcerative Colitis
21
State Impact Center. Six AGs Filed Objection to Bankruptcy Deal
22
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