There is no settlement in the McDonald Worley Bair Hugger lawsuit as of mid-2026. The federal multidistrict litigation against 3M over its Bair Hugger forced-air surgical warming device still holds more than 8,400 active claims, bellwether trial candidates are being worked up, and a retired federal judge is facilitating settlement talks that have not yet produced a deal. McDonald Worley attorney Gabriel Assaad sits on the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee and the MDL’s Settlement Committee, putting the firm inside the room where any resolution will be negotiated.
Where Settlement Talks Stand
Retired federal judge James M. Rosenbaum is serving as Special Master to facilitate settlement discussions between the plaintiffs and 3M. That process had been underway for at least a year by October 2024. An October 2024 scheduling order stated that the Special Master and the parties had concluded “additional trials are necessary to facilitate settlement of the MDL,” and six cases were jointly selected for trial to help move negotiations forward.
An earlier mediation attempt failed. Assaad confirmed in early 2023 that the parties had tried and been unable to reach terms.
No settlement amounts have been publicly disclosed, and no settlements have been publicized in the MDL. Outside analysts have floated a potential range of $30,000 to over $250,000 per case, but those numbers are speculative and do not come from the court or the parties. Meaningful progress is generally expected in the 2026 to 2027 window, once the current round of bellwether trials produces verdicts that can anchor negotiations.
McDonald Worley’s Role in the MDL
McDonald Worley is a Houston-based plaintiff’s firm representing Bair Hugger claimants in both the federal MDL and state courts in Texas and Missouri. Gabriel Assaad joined the firm in 2019 to build out its mass torts practice and, according to the firm, to represent hundreds of victims in this litigation. He holds a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Florida and a law degree from Vanderbilt.
Assaad’s positions in the MDL are substantive. He sits on the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee, co-chairs the Discovery and Science Committees, and is a member of the Trial and Settlement Committees. He was also part of the appellate team that secured the Eighth Circuit reversal in 2021, the ruling that kept the litigation alive after the trial court had dismissed it. He was named Minnesota Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2022.
In a 2023 interview, Assaad described how the firm screens potential clients. A patient must have undergone a hip or knee replacement where a Bair Hugger was used and then required additional surgery to treat an infection. Superficial wound infections that clear up with antibiotics alone generally do not qualify. Confirming that a Bair Hugger was actually used in a specific surgery can be difficult from medical records alone, and he recommended that potential clients work with an experienced product-liability attorney to pull the relevant records.
Why There Is No Settlement Yet
The litigation is not on the verge of resolution because both sides are still fighting over the evidence that would set the value of any deal. As of June 2026, the MDL contains 8,422 active claims out of more than 10,700 total filings, and the cases are in fact discovery, with monthly status conferences scheduled through December 2026 before Magistrate Judge David T. Schultz.
The trial-court posture has swung sharply over the life of the case. After the first bellwether trial ended in a defense verdict in May 2018, the MDL court in July 2019 excluded the plaintiffs’ general-causation experts and granted 3M summary judgment across the entire litigation. The Eighth Circuit reversed on August 16, 2021, in Amador v. 3M Co., holding that the district court had committed a “clear error of judgment” in excluding the experts and that deficiencies in an expert’s factual basis go to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. The U.S. Supreme Court denied 3M’s petition for review on May 30, 2023, and the cases went back for further proceedings.
Since then, the expert fight has continued to shape settlement leverage. In February 2025, Judge Joan Ericksen ruled that expert testimony on general causation would be permitted going forward. In late 2024 the parties jointly picked cases for trial to facilitate settlement, and 18 active bellwether candidates had been identified by January 2025 from an original pool of 34. Seven “Wave 2” cases remain active.
In May 2026, plaintiffs’ expert Dr. William Jarvis submitted a new report opining that the Bair Hugger “is capable of causing periprosthetic joint infection, from a general causation standpoint.” Dr. Jarvis was deposed in February 2026 in the Texas state case Kelso v. 3M, and the parties stipulated that the transcript could be used in the MDL. 3M is expected to submit expert reports responding to that opinion.
3M denies the allegations. The company argues that forced-air warming reduces surgical site infections by preventing hypothermia, points to the device’s continued FDA clearance and the absence of any recall, and cites a 2013 international consensus meeting where 89 percent of more than 300 surgical delegates agreed that no studies had shown an increased infection rate tied to these devices. The FDA stated in 2017 that it was “unable to identify a consistently reported association” between forced-air warming devices and surgical site infections.
State court cases are running on their own tracks. In June 2024, a Missouri appeals court upheld a defense verdict in a state case where the plaintiff had alleged the device was defectively designed and caused a post-operative knee infection. As of early 2025, seven state court cases were pending across Texas, Missouri, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Montana, with some trials scheduled for 2025 or 2026.
Who Qualifies to File a Claim
The Bair Hugger litigation is a multidistrict litigation, not a class action. Each plaintiff’s case remains an individual lawsuit; the cases are consolidated in the District of Minnesota (MDL No. 2666) only for pretrial matters such as discovery and motions practice. Cases can be sent back to their home districts for trial, or resolved through settlement or dismissal.
To qualify, a patient generally must have:
- Undergone a hip or knee replacement surgery in which a Bair Hugger was used, and
- Developed a deep joint infection afterward that required additional surgical treatment such as revision surgery, irrigation, or debridement.
Most qualifying infections develop within a year of the original surgery. Courts have increasingly examined whether a plaintiff can connect the infection to the specific surgical environment where the device was used, including operating-room airflow configuration and microbiology results pointing to airborne contamination.
Statutes of limitations vary by state but generally run one to six years, typically starting when the injury occurs or is discovered. Within the MDL, plaintiffs must also meet court-imposed procedural deadlines, including submitting plaintiff fact sheets. As of December 2025, the defendants had filed their seventeenth motion to dismiss claims for non-compliance with pretrial orders, so keeping up with those obligations matters.
Options While Waiting for Resolution
Because the litigation has stretched on for years without a global resolution, some Bair Hugger plaintiffs have used litigation funding companies that offer non-recourse cash advances against a potential future recovery. These advances typically require no credit checks or monthly payments and are repaid only if the plaintiff wins or settles. Providers evaluate applications by consulting with the plaintiff’s attorney about the case’s merits and likely outcome. The money is generally used to cover medical bills, living expenses, or other costs while the MDL runs its course.