AFFF / PFAS Litigation: Ongoing Coverage of MDL 2873

This is an ongoing story. 411 Press updates this coverage as the litigation develops. Last updated: June 8, 2026.

The AFFF litigation is two cases sharing one chemical. The first is largely over: public water systems that found PFAS in their supplies sued the manufacturers, and the manufacturers settled for billions. The second is just getting to trial: people who say PFAS exposure gave them cancer — firefighters, military personnel, residents of contaminated communities — are still waiting for a jury. Both are consolidated before one judge in Charleston, South Carolina.

More than 15,000 cases are now pending in the federal AFFF multidistrict litigation, MDL No. 2873 — a docket dominated by personal-injury claims, alongside the water-provider claims that drove the headline settlements. The two tracks turn on different questions. The water-provider track was about who pays to clean up the contamination. The personal-injury track is about whether the contamination caused disease — a question the manufacturers contest and no jury has yet answered.

Pending Cases	15,220+ in MDL No. 2873 (as of March 2026)
Court	District of South Carolina (Charleston)
Judge	Richard M. Gergel
Master Docket	No. 2:18-mn-2873-RMG
Lead Defendants	3M, DuPont, Chemours, Corteva, Tyco/Chemguard, and others
Water-Provider Track	Largely settled — 3M up to ~$10.3B; DuPont group ~$1.185B
Personal-Injury Track	Contested — bellwether process underway, no trial date currently set

Where the Litigation Stands

MDL 2873 consolidates AFFF and PFAS claims before U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel in the District of South Carolina, sitting in Charleston. It is among the largest active federal MDLs. Docket reporting put the litigation at more than 15,220 pending cases as of March 2026, roughly double the count a year earlier as personal-injury filings accelerated. The court's own MDL page describes "tens of thousands of plaintiffs" across the consolidated actions.

The litigation runs on two tracks, and they are at very different stages.

The public water-provider track — claims by municipal and public water systems that detected PFAS in their drinking water — is largely resolved through settlement. The personal-injury track — claims by individuals who say PFAS exposure caused cancer or other disease — remains contested and is moving through the bellwether process toward trial.

411 Press tracks both. The settled track is a set of resolved facts. The contested track is an open question that the courts have not answered.

The Water-Provider Track: Largely Settled

The claims that produced the headline numbers came from public water utilities, not individuals. Water systems across the country detected PFAS — a class of synthetic "forever chemicals" used in AFFF and many other products — in their supplies, and sued the manufacturers to recover the cost of testing and treatment.

3M settlement. In 2023, 3M agreed to pay U.S. public water systems to resolve PFAS contamination claims. The agreement is structured as payments over roughly 13 years, with a present value of approximately $10.3 billion and a maximum potential payout of up to $12.5 billion depending on detections over time. The settlement received final court approval in 2024, according to 3M's investor disclosures and the court-approved settlement administrator.

DuPont group settlement. DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva agreed to a separate settlement of approximately $1.185 billion with public water providers to resolve their PFAS drinking-water claims.

These settlements compensate water utilities for cleanup. They do not compensate individuals who developed disease. That distinction is the dividing line in the litigation: a water system recovering treatment costs and a firefighter alleging kidney cancer are pursuing different claims, on different theories, at different stages.

The Personal-Injury Track: Contested

The personal-injury claims are where the litigation is now active and unresolved. Plaintiffs are firefighters, military personnel, airport and refinery workers, and residents of communities near bases and industrial sites where AFFF was used or PFAS entered the water. They allege that exposure caused disease — and the manufacturers dispute that it did.

The diseases at the center of the personal-injury bellwether process are kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, and ulcerative colitis, with additional disease categories raised across the broader docket. The litigation has organized bellwether cases around these conditions to test the claims before a jury.

The core allegation is the same pattern that recurs across product-liability mass torts: that the manufacturers knew or should have known the chemicals posed health risks, and failed to adequately warn the people exposed to them. Whether the science supports the causation claims — whether AFFF or PFAS exposure in fact caused a given plaintiff's disease — is precisely what is contested, and what the bellwether trials are meant to test.

411 Press does not characterize the personal-injury claims as proven. They are allegations. What follows is what plaintiffs allege, what the agencies have stated, and what the courts have done — each attributed.

What the Agencies and Science Panels Have Stated

Causation in the personal-injury track turns on the science, and the science is itself contested. Two sources are worth distinguishing, because they say different things and carry different weight.

The EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency states that "current peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to" a range of health effects, including "increased risk of some cancers, including prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers" and "reduced ability of the body's immune system to fight infections." The EPA frames these as associations, not settled causation, and cautions that "health effects associated with exposure to PFAS are difficult to specify for many reasons" and that "research is still ongoing." Notably, the EPA's public health summary does not list thyroid disease or ulcerative colitis among its enumerated effects.

The C8 Science Panel. The thyroid-disease and ulcerative-colitis claims trace to a different source: the C8 Science Panel, a body of epidemiologists appointed under a 2005 West Virginia court settlement involving PFOA contamination from a DuPont plant. In 2012, the panel found a "probable link" between PFOA exposure and six conditions in that exposed community — high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. The panel defined a "probable link" as a finding that, given the available evidence, "it is more likely than not that among class members a connection exists" — a community-specific determination, not a general scientific verdict. Subsequent peer-reviewed research has both supported and challenged parts of those findings.

The distinction matters. The EPA's enumerated cancers and the C8 panel's "probable link" conditions are different lists from different bodies under different standards. Reporting that conflates them — or that treats either as a court finding of causation in MDL 2873 — would overstate the record. No court has found that AFFF or PFAS caused any individual plaintiff's disease.

Key Court Actions

Master docket established in South Carolina. MDL 2873 was centralized before Judge Gergel in the District of South Carolina, under master docket No. 2:18-mn-2873-RMG, with the first case management order entered in early 2019.

Water-provider settlements approved (2023–2024). The 3M public water settlement reached final court approval in 2024 following preliminary approval in 2023; the DuPont group's ~$1.185 billion water settlement resolved in the same period.

Personal-injury bellwether process underway. The court has organized personal-injury bellwether cases around kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, and ulcerative colitis. A kidney-cancer bellwether trial that had been set for October 2025 was taken off the calendar as the court managed an influx of filings and aligned expert and Daubert schedules. As of this update, a new personal-injury trial date had not been set.

Federal-officer removal — First Circuit ruling (November 2025). Whether PFAS claims belong in federal or state court is a recurring procedural fight in this litigation. On November 19, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in State of Maine v. 3M Company (No. 23-1709) that one of Maine's PFAS suits against 3M must stay in federal court. Maine had split its claims, disclaiming any AFFF connection in one complaint to argue that without AFFF there was no federal defense and the case belonged in state court. A district court agreed and ordered that case remanded. The First Circuit reversed, holding that 3M's federal-contractor defense — tied to AFFF manufactured under military specifications — was "colorable," and that Maine's disclaimer did not defeat federal-officer removal where PFAS contamination from different sources could be commingled. The ruling is one of several keeping state-brought PFAS cases in the federal system.

What Comes Next

Personal-injury trial date — not currently set. The court vacated the October 2025 kidney-cancer bellwether and has not, as of this update, set a replacement date. The bellwether trials, when they occur, will produce the first jury verdicts on the personal-injury causation question.

Daubert / expert rulings. Both sides are expected to challenge each other's expert witnesses on whether the science supports causation. Daubert rulings will determine which scientific testimony a jury can hear — and in PFAS litigation, those rulings are likely to be decisive.

Personal-injury settlement framework — not reached. The water-provider track settled. The personal-injury track has not. Whether a global settlement framework emerges for personal-injury claims will depend in large part on what the first bellwether verdicts show.

411 Press treats projected personal-injury settlement values circulating in legal commentary as projections, not facts. No personal-injury settlement framework exists in MDL 2873 as of this update, and we do not publish speculative per-plaintiff figures.

Background: What AFFF and PFAS Are

A note on the chemistry, because the litigation turns on it.

AFFF is aqueous film-forming foam, a firefighting agent developed in the 1960s and used for decades to suppress fuel fires — at military bases, civilian airports, refineries, and fire departments. It is effective on liquid-fuel fires in a way water is not, which is why it became standard.

PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are the class of synthetic chemicals that gave AFFF its properties. They are called "forever chemicals" because the carbon-fluorine bonds that make them useful also make them extraordinarily persistent; they do not readily break down in the environment or the human body. The two most-studied are PFOA and PFOS.

The contamination pathway in the water-provider track is well documented: AFFF used in training and firefighting entered soil and groundwater, and PFAS migrated into drinking-water supplies. That pathway is the basis of the settled utility claims. The disputed question in the personal-injury track is the next link in the chain — whether the resulting exposure caused specific diseases in specific people. That link is what the bellwether trials, and the expert fights that precede them, are meant to test.

For Affected Communities and Workers

One resource for affected people. People who were exposed to AFFF or PFAS-contaminated water — firefighters, military personnel, and residents of affected communities — can register their exposure and health details at PFAS Water Experts, an outside site that takes in those submissions and has lawyers review whether a person may have a claim. It is a sign-up form, not a reading page. 411 Press is a newsroom; we do not file claims, represent claimants, or assess anyone's situation, and we have no role in anything submitted through it.

More Coverage

Recent 411 Press reporting on the PFAS and environmental-contamination beat:

Coverage tags: AFFF · PFAS · MDL 2873 · 3M · Water Contamination

Related litigation we are tracking:

• Camp Lejeune Litigation — water contamination, ~407,000 administrative claims
• Ozempic / GLP-1 MDL — 3,722+ cases pending
• Hair Relaxer MDL — 11,526 pending cases
• Mass Tort Coverage Index — all active mass torts 411 Press tracks

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411 Press monitors the MDL 2873 docket and publishes updates as developments occur. We'll publish more as we find out. For our reporting methodology and sourcing standards, see our editorial standards.