Mass Tort Settlement News: Payouts, Verdicts, Pending Approvals

Mass tort settlement news in mid-2026 is dominated by three stories at once: billions already flowing to claimants in older dockets like 3M Combat Arms earplugs and the national opioid framework, massive deals awaiting final approval in Roundup and Depo-Provera, and a wave of state-court jury verdicts in talc and infant formula cases that keeps rewriting what the next global settlements may cost. Here is where the major matters stand.

Settlements Actively Paying Out

3M Combat Arms Earplugs

3M’s $6 billion settlement with roughly 260,000 military claimants is in its distribution phase. The agreement, announced in August 2023, is structured as $5 billion in cash and $1 billion in 3M stock paid between 2023 and 2029, with no admission of liability.¹ More than $3.1 billion had been distributed to claimants by early 2026, with payments made first-in, first-out. The federal MDL is considered fully wound down, with only a handful of coordinated Minnesota cases still open.²

Opioid National Settlements

The national opioid framework involves nearly every major pharmaceutical defendant: distributors Cardinal Health, McKesson, and Cencora; manufacturers Janssen, Teva, and Allergan; and pharmacy chains CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart.³ Several milestones landed in 2025 and early 2026. Purdue Pharma’s amended bankruptcy plan received final court approval on November 18, 2025, providing more than $7.4 billion in creditor distributions funded by Purdue and the Sackler family. Walgreens’ $4.7 billion settlement is active but subject to a payout dispute involving a whistleblower as of February 2026. More than 1,000 hospitals reached a combined $700 million settlement in March 2025, and Amneal disclosed an $88.5 million settlement in January 2026, with claimants eligible for up to $267 million in cash and overdose treatments.⁴

One caveat matters for anyone expecting a check. According to Christine Minhee of OpioidSettlementTracker.com, less than 2% of settlement funds had reached victims as of late 2025. Most of the money goes to state and local governments, and in most states victim compensation is not a prioritized use.⁴

Boy Scouts of America

The Boy Scouts of America sex abuse settlement trust has issued payments to survivors since April 2023. By March 2026, the trust had made determinations on 57,612 claims, and second-round distributions began on March 3, 2026. Claimants are receiving total distributions of 4.7% of their allowed claim amounts, a figure reflecting partial resolution of a dispute over how many future abuse claims to reserve for. About $1.65 billion remains in escrow pending finalization of the plan confirmation order. The trust is also liquidating real estate and art, with $28.8 million sold and another $15.2 million under contract, and is pursuing insurers in a Texas federal court coverage action.⁵

PFAS Water System Settlements

Litigation over per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances has produced more than $12 billion in settlements for public water systems. The bulk comes from 3M’s $10.3 billion commitment in 2023 and a combined $1.185 billion from DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva.⁶ New Jersey separately secured an $875 million environmental settlement in August 2025, and DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva agreed to a $2 billion settlement with the state in 2025.⁷

Municipalities face critical Phase 2 claim deadlines through 2026, ranging from March 31 for testing claims to August 1 for special needs fund claims. Missing a deadline forfeits both settlement funds and future litigation rights against 3M and DuPont for water contamination.⁶

Individual PFAS personal injury claims are a different track. More than 15,200 lawsuits are pending in the AFFF MDL in South Carolina, with bellwether trials expected in 2026 and no global settlement yet. Legal projections put per-plaintiff payouts anywhere from under $75,000 for limited-exposure cases to $200,000–$600,000 for long-term exposure involving kidney or testicular cancer.⁶

Zantac

Most Zantac litigation has wound down. A federal judge in Florida dismissed all MDL cases in December 2022 after finding the plaintiffs’ causation evidence inadmissible. In October 2024, GSK announced a $2.2 billion settlement resolving roughly 80,000 state court cases, covering 93% of its pending docket.⁸ In April 2026, a Delaware state court dismissed more than 80,000 additional pre-2026 lawsuits following a Delaware Supreme Court ruling on the admissibility of plaintiffs’ expert testimony.⁹

Settlements Awaiting Final Approval

Roundup

Bayer announced a $7.25 billion class-action settlement on February 17, 2026, designed to resolve current and potential future Roundup claims alleging the weed killer causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A Missouri state court judge granted preliminary approval in early March 2026, with a final approval hearing set for July 9, 2026.¹⁰

The settlement is structured to pay out over 21 years, with individual awards estimated at $6,000 to $165,000 depending on professional exposure, age at diagnosis, and cancer severity.¹¹ It also faces real resistance. Dozens of objectors have challenged the deal, and plaintiffs’ firms representing nearly 20,000 claimants have sought delays, arguing compensation is insufficient. The opt-out deadline passed on June 4, 2026. On June 17, a federal judge remanded the case to Missouri state court after ruling that objectors who had tried to move it to federal court lacked authority to do so, and an objecting attorney has appealed.¹²

A separate wild card: the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 27, 2026, in Durnell v. Monsanto, which tests whether federal pesticide labeling law preempts state failure-to-warn claims. Over 100 organizations, including the federal government and 15 states, filed briefs supporting Monsanto’s position. A decision was expected by late June 2026, and a ruling in Bayer’s favor could reshape the remaining litigation.¹³

Verdicts have continued through all of this. A Georgia jury returned a $2.1 billion verdict against Bayer in March 2025, including $2 billion in punitive damages. In October 2025, the Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear Bayer’s appeal of a $611 million verdict. Bayer also won several defense verdicts upheld on appeal in Illinois, Missouri, and Pennsylvania during 2025.¹³

Depo-Provera

One of the fastest-growing dockets of 2025–2026 involves Pfizer’s injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera, which plaintiffs allege causes meningiomas. The litigation was consolidated as MDL 3140 in the Northern District of Florida in February 2025 and grew past 5,500 active lawsuits by mid-2026. The FDA approved updated labeling in December 2025 that officially warns of meningioma risk, complicating Pfizer’s preemption defense. On June 16, 2026, the parties reached a tentative global settlement, though specific compensation amounts and eligibility criteria had not been publicly disclosed and remain subject to judicial approval.¹⁴

Paraquat

Roughly 6,500 paraquat cases, alleging that exposure to Syngenta’s Gramoxone causes Parkinson’s disease, are consolidated in the Southern District of Illinois. The parties signed a settlement agreement in principle in August 2025, and in March 2026 the court approved a qualified settlement fund to manage future disbursements. Specific financial terms remain confidential.¹⁵¹⁶ A trial scheduled for April 2026 was canceled, and Syngenta has been settling individual cases just before trial, including a late-January 2026 resolution with a retired landscaper in Philadelphia state court. In March 2026, Syngenta announced it would stop producing paraquat.

No Global Deal: Verdicts Driving the Story

Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder

J&J’s talc litigation is the largest active MDL by case count, with more than 67,600 lawsuits pending in federal court in New Jersey as of May 2026. Claims allege that talc-based products including baby powder caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.¹⁷

J&J has tried three times to resolve the litigation through subsidiary bankruptcies, first LTL Management and then Red River Talc, with proposed settlement funds reaching $8 to $9 billion. Courts have repeatedly rejected those efforts. The Third Circuit upheld the dismissal of the LTL bankruptcy in July 2024, finding it was not filed in good faith, and the most recent Red River Talc attempt was denied in April 2025.¹⁷

State court trials keep producing dramatic numbers. A Baltimore jury awarded $1.5 billion to a single mesothelioma plaintiff in December 2025, and another jury awarded $40 million in an ovarian cancer bellwether that same month. In March 2026, a California judge reduced a $966 million October 2025 verdict to $16 million by canceling the punitive damages component. A Los Angeles jury returned a $32 million mesothelioma verdict in June 2026, while a second concurrent jury reached a mistrial.¹⁷¹⁸ Analysts suggest a final global settlement could eventually reach $11 billion.

NEC Infant Formula

Lawsuits alleging that cow’s-milk-based infant formulas from Abbott Laboratories and Mead Johnson caused necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants continue in both the federal MDL (No. 3026, Northern District of Illinois) and state courts. Roughly 780 to 800 cases remain in the federal docket as of spring 2026.¹⁹

The federal bellwether process has gone poorly for plaintiffs, with the first three cases ending in summary judgment for Abbott. State courts have moved the other direction. A Cook County, Illinois jury awarded $70 million against Abbott in April 2026. In May 2026, a Missouri appeals court affirmed a $495 million verdict against Abbott, including $400 million in punitive damages. In June 2026, an appeals court reversed a $60 million Mead Johnson verdict, holding that the duty to warn was owed to the prescribing physician, not the mother.²⁰¹⁸ No global settlement exists.

Uber Sexual Assault

The Uber passenger sexual assault litigation, MDL 3084 in the Northern District of California, has produced its first federal bellwether verdicts. In February 2026, a jury found Uber liable under an “apparent agency” theory and awarded the plaintiff $8.5 million. In April 2026, a second bellwether in North Carolina resulted in a $5,000 award after the jury found the Uber driver committed battery. Uber is challenging both verdicts on appeal.²¹ About 3,057 claims remain in the federal MDL, with another 854 active in California state court, and two more bellwethers are scheduled to begin in September 2026.²²

Paragard IUD

The first federal bellwether trial in the Paragard IUD litigation ended in February 2026 with a defense verdict, as the jury rejected claims that Teva Pharmaceuticals was liable for design defects or failure to warn. Over 3,900 cases remain in the MDL in the Northern District of Georgia, and the second bellwether has been postponed to fall 2026.²³

Camp Lejeune Water Contamination

The Camp Lejeune Justice Act, signed in 2022, opened a two-year window for veterans, family members, and workers to file claims over decades of water contamination at the Marine Corps base. By the August 2024 filing deadline, the Navy had received 408,860 administrative claims. An additional 3,718 victims have filed lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.²⁴

As of February 2026, settlements had been approved for 2,353 victims, with 1,554 offers accepted. Total approved offers amounted to $691.3 million, averaging slightly under $300,000 per accepted settlement. The Department of Justice’s “elective option,” introduced in September 2023, pays between $100,000 and $450,000 depending on illness type and time spent at the base, with an additional $100,000 for cases involving premature death. Claimants who accept an elective-option settlement are not subject to offsets from VA disability awards.²⁴²⁵

Roughly two dozen lawsuits have been selected as bellwethers representing various contamination-related illnesses, and federal judges have denied DOJ motions to dismiss, signaling trials will move forward later in 2026. Proposed House and Senate legislation would allow jury trials and transfers to other federal venues, but neither bill has advanced out of committee.²⁴

Early-Stage Litigations to Watch

GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs

Lawsuits against Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly over Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Trulicity are consolidated in MDL 3094 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. As of April 2026, 3,546 cases were pending, up 130% year over year.²⁶²⁷ Plaintiffs allege failure to warn about gastroparesis, intestinal obstruction, and gallbladder disease. A separate MDL (No. 3163) was established in December 2025 for cases involving NAION, a condition causing sudden vision loss, after the European Medicines Agency concluded in June 2025 that semaglutide-containing drugs may cause rare cases of NAION.²⁸

In August 2025, Judge Karen Marston narrowed the litigation by striking medical monitoring, design defect, and vague misrepresentation claims but allowed failure-to-warn and breach-of-warranty claims to proceed. No settlements have been reached, and bellwether trials are not expected until late 2026 or early 2027.²⁶

Hair Relaxer Cancer

The hair relaxer MDL (No. 3060), alleging that chemical straightening products from L’Oréal, Revlon, Strength of Nature, and others cause uterine, endometrial, and ovarian cancer, has grown to 11,526 pending cases in the Northern District of Illinois as of May 2026. The litigation was spurred by a 2022 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences study finding that frequent users of chemical hair straighteners were twice as likely to develop uterine cancer.²⁹

Judge Mary Rowland held a “Science Day” in January 2026 with causation presentations from both sides, and she is personally selecting a pool of 10 bellwether cases after rejecting the parties’ selection process. The court has excluded cases involving overlapping talc litigation or unrelated conditions. Core corporate discovery is largely complete, but no trials are expected until 2027. No settlements have been reached, though Ellen Reisman has been appointed as a special settlement mediator.³⁰

Suboxone Tooth Decay

Litigation alleging that Suboxone sublingual film causes severe dental damage is pending as MDL 3092 in the Northern District of Ohio. The docket shows roughly 1,900 cases, though individual plaintiff counts may exceed 20,000 because of batch filing. A core discovery pool of 100 cases was selected in February 2026, with the first bellwether trial projected for March 2028.³¹

Tepezza

Lawsuits against Horizon Therapeutics (now owned by Amgen) alleging that the thyroid eye disease drug Tepezza causes permanent hearing loss and tinnitus are consolidated in the Northern District of Illinois, with 278 pending cases as of June 2026. In October 2025, all bellwether trial dates were vacated following an off-the-record conference, widely interpreted as a signal that settlement discussions are underway. No global settlement or trial date has been announced.³²

A $4 Billion Settlement Under Fraud Investigation

One high-profile deal has been thrown into doubt. Approximately a year before June 2026, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to a settlement exceeding $4 billion to resolve more than 11,000 claims arising from abuse at county juvenile halls, foster homes, and children’s shelters including MacLaren Hall.³³

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman alleged that as many as 81% of claims in the settlement could be fraudulent. His office opened a criminal investigation after reports that some plaintiffs were recruited and paid to fabricate abuse claims. In June 2026, Hochman filed a motion to intervene and requested a six-month pause on payouts. The State Bar of California has separately charged three attorneys at a firm involved in the settlement for allegedly signing up clients in states where they were not licensed.³⁴

The Broader Docket

As of Q1 2026, 158 active MDLs were spread across 46 federal districts, with nearly 198,000 pending cases. More than 95% of those cases sit in just 25 dockets, reflecting how concentrated modern mass tort practice has become.²⁷ New MDL filings dropped sharply from 75,570 in 2024 to 37,735 in 2025, though the backlog of pending cases continues to grow because resolution timelines keep lengthening.³⁵ Courts are pushing harder for resolution in long-running dockets, scheduling trial dates, settlement frameworks, and expert-testimony hearings in parallel, while newer litigations around GLP-1 drugs, Depo-Provera, and Suboxone keep scaling.³⁶

1
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida. 3M Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2885
2
Miller & Zois. 3M Combat Arms Earplug Lawsuit
3
National Opioids Settlement. National Opioids Settlement
4
Opioid Settlement Tracker. Global Settlement Tracker
5
Scouting Settlement Trust. Scouting Settlement Trust
6
LlamaLab. PFAS Litigation: 15,000 Cases, Settlement Deadlines
7
Drugwatch. PFAS Lawsuits
8
GSK. Zantac Litigation
9
Law360. Del. Judge Ends 80K Pre-2026 Zantac Cases
10
Law.com. How the $7.25B Roundup Settlement Deadlines Overlap With Key SCOTUS Case
11
Drugwatch. Roundup Lawsuit
12
Reuters. Federal Judge Sends Bayer’s $7.25 Billion Roundup Settlement Back to Missouri State Court
13
Bayer. Managing the Roundup Litigation
14
Drugwatch. Depo-Provera Lawsuit Timeline
15
Drugwatch. Paraquat Lawsuits
16
ConsumerNotice. Paraquat Lawsuits Settlement
17
Drugwatch. Talcum Powder Settlements
18
Law.com. Mass Torts
19
ConsumerNotice. Baby Formula Lawsuit
20
Miller & Zois. NEC Formula Lawsuit
21
Verus LLC. Updates From the Consolidated MDL: The Uber Sexual Assault Litigation
22
Torhoerman Law. Uber Sexual Assault Lawsuit
23
Dolman Law. Paragard IUD Lawsuit
24
Roll Call. Victims of Camp Lejeune’s Tainted Water Inch Closer to Amends
25
U.S. Department of Justice. Camp Lejeune Justice Act Claims
26
Wisner Baum. Wegovy Lawsuit
27
LlamaLab. MDL Trends Q1 2026
28
Levin Law. Ozempic Lawsuit
29
Motley Rice. Hair Relaxer Lawsuit
30
Miller & Zois. Hair Relaxer Lawsuit
31
Lawsuit Information Center. Suboxone Tooth Decay Lawsuit
32
Drugwatch. Tepezza Lawsuit
33
Los Angeles County District Attorney. District Attorney Hochman Files Application to Intervene in L.A. County Child Sex Abuse Settlement
34
Los Angeles Times. L.A. County DA Claims Four in Five Cases in $4 Billion Sex Abuse Payout May Be Fraudulent
35
Rabiej Litigation Law Center. Mass Tort MDL Research
36
Verus LLC. Mass Tort Outlook 2026