What Are the PFAS Lawsuits?

Most US PFAS lawsuits over firefighting foam are consolidated in the AFFF multidistrict litigation in the federal court for the District of South Carolina. In a quarterly filing signed July 21, 2026, 3M reported that as of July 1, 2026, based on information published by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, approximately 15,200 cases relating in whole or in part to alleged PFAS contamination or exposure associated with AFFF were pending there.

Public water systems settled with two groups of manufacturers. 3M says the court approved its public water supplier settlement in March 2024, that it became effective in May 2024, and that 3M will pay $10.5 billion to $12.5 billion in total, and the settlement provides that 3M does not admit any liability or wrongdoing. Chemours reports that Chemours, Corteva and DuPont contributed a total of $1.185 billion to a settlement fund for their public water system class settlement, which the court finally approved on February 8, 2024, and that the three companies deny the allegations in the underlying litigation.

Personal injury claims are still pending. According to 3M, in August 2025 the court vacated the schedule for the first bellwether personal injury trial that was to begin in October 2025, no new trial date has been set, and the parties completed general causation expert discovery on liver and thyroid cancers in April 2026.

States have pursued their own claims. On August 7, 2026, New Jersey's Attorney General announced judicial approval of two settlements over statewide PFAS contamination and pollution from four industrial sites, saying the settlement with the DuPont entities is valued at over $2 billion and that, together with the 3M settlement, they are valued at approximately $2.5 billion.