AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuit: Where It Stands

Two very different things are both true about AFFF litigation at once: water utilities have already collected more than $13 billion in finalized settlements, and firefighters and veterans who actually got sick are still waiting for their own claims to be resolved. Confusing the two is the most common mistake in understanding where this litigation actually stands.

Quick answer: 3M and DuPont/Chemours/Corteva have already paid out over $13 billion combined — but that money resolved public water system contamination claims, not personal injury claims. Firefighters, veterans, airport workers and residents who developed kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid cancer or disease, or ulcerative colitis are pursuing separate claims in MDL No. 2873 before Judge Richard Gergel in the District of South Carolina, and no global personal injury settlement has been reached. Manufacturers’ government contractor defense — that a 1969 Navy specification required this formula — was rejected by the court in September 2022.

Two Separate Fights, Frequently Confused

Aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) has been used for decades by the military, airports, and municipal fire departments to suppress fuel and chemical fires. It contains PFAS — often called “forever chemicals” because they resist breaking down in the environment or the body, allowing them to accumulate over repeated exposure.

This litigation actually involves two distinct claimant groups with two entirely different outcomes so far:

• Public water systems and municipalities, seeking remediation costs for PFAS-contaminated drinking water — largely resolved, through finalized settlements described below
• Individuals with a qualifying diagnosis — firefighters, veterans, airport personnel, and residents near a contamination site — seeking compensation for their own illness, still unresolved

The Water Utility Settlements: Real, Finalized, and Not What You’re Looking For

3M agreed to a settlement resolving public water system claims, reported at roughly $10.3 billion with additional contingent payments that can raise the total. DuPont, Chemours and Corteva separately agreed to pay approximately $1.185 billion to resolve similar water utility claims. Both are large, genuinely finalized settlements — but both compensate water providers for testing and remediation costs, not individuals for a cancer diagnosis or other illness.

If you are a firefighter, veteran, or resident who got sick, these settlements are not your claims process. The personal injury litigation is a separate track, described below.

Where the Personal Injury MDL Actually Stands

• MDL No. 2873, In re: Aqueous Film-Forming Foams Products Liability Litigation, consolidated before Judge Richard Gergel in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.
• Tens of thousands of cases pending — one of the largest current federal mass torts by sheer case count.
• Recognized injury categories include kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid cancer and thyroid disease, and ulcerative colitis, with additional conditions considered as the science and litigation develop.
• No global personal injury settlement has been reached. Personal injury bellwether trials — early test cases used to gauge jury valuation and typically drive settlement talks for the rest of the docket — have been scheduled and then taken off the calendar more than once, leaving the timeline genuinely uncertain.

See our explainer on how mass tort litigation actually works for what an MDL is and why a large, mature docket like this one can still take years to reach a global resolution.

The Government Contractor Defense That Didn’t Work

This litigation has a genuinely distinctive legal wrinkle most mass torts don’t: manufacturers argued they should be immune from liability because the government itself required the formula they were sued over.

In 1969, the Navy’s Mil-F-24385 specification required AFFF contractors to formulate the foam using fluorocarbon surfactants — the class of chemicals that includes PFAS. Manufacturers, including 3M, argued the government contractor defense: that a company building a product to the government’s own required specifications generally cannot be held liable for defects inherent in that specification.

In September 2022, the MDL judge rejected the defense, finding material factual disputes over whether manufacturers had timely informed federal agencies of the health and environmental risks associated with the chemicals in AFFF. That knowledge-and-disclosure question — not the existence of the military specification itself — is what defeated the defense at this stage, and it remains a central factual issue in the ongoing litigation.

Who Can Bring a Claim, and What It Takes to Build One

Potential claimants generally fall into a few groups:

• Firefighters, military and civilian, with repeated occupational exposure to AFFF during training or suppression activities
• Military personnel and veterans stationed where AFFF was used, particularly for fire training exercises
• Airport personnel, given AFFF’s long-standing use in aviation fire suppression
• Residents near a documented contamination site, where drinking water was affected by AFFF use nearby

Building an individual claim generally requires:

• A documented exposure history — service records, employment records, fire department training logs, or established residency near a contamination site
• A qualifying diagnosis, with pathology and treatment records
• Environmental or water testing data, where available, corroborating contamination at the relevant location

Because exposure frequently occurred years or decades before a diagnosis, reconstructing the exposure history is often the most time-consuming part of building the claim — and the reason gathering old service and employment records early matters more here than in a more recent-exposure mass tort.

Practical Steps

1. Document your exposure history now, while records and memories are easiest to establish — service records, employment history, training logs, or proof of residency near a known contamination site.
2. Get your diagnosis and complete treatment records organized, including pathology reports establishing the specific condition.
3. Do not assume the 3M or DuPont water settlements apply to your personal injury claim — they resolved a different claimant group entirely.
4. Check current bellwether and settlement developments before assuming any specific status, since trial dates in this MDL have shifted more than once.
5. Consult an attorney handling AFFF claims specifically, given the case volume and the ongoing government-contractor and causation issues unique to this litigation.

Sources & Further Reading

• U.S. District Court, District of South Carolina — docket for MDL No. 2873, In re: Aqueous Film-Forming Foams Products Liability Litigation (Master Docket No. 2:18-mn-2873-RMG, public via CourtListener)
• Boyle v. United Technologies Corp., 487 U.S. 500 (1988) — the Supreme Court’s government contractor defense framework, requiring the government to have approved reasonably precise specifications, the product to have conformed to them, and the supplier to have warned the government of dangers known to the supplier but not the government
• Navy specification Mil-F-24385 (1969) — the AFFF formulation requirement manufacturers cited in their (rejected) government contractor defense
• Finalized public water system settlements: 3M (approximately $10.3 billion, with contingent additional payments) and DuPont, Chemours and Corteva (approximately $1.185 billion)
• See our explainer on how mass tort litigation actually works for the MDL framework this litigation runs on, and our vaccine injury claims and the VICP guide for a comparable example of a government-created program interacting with ordinary product liability claims