Baron & Budd, Douglas & London, P.C., and Napoli Shkolnik Reach Historic Settlement with 3M Company for PFAS Contamination in America’s Drinking Water

Co-Leads/Interim Class Counsel in the AFFF multi-district litigation (“MDL 2873”) and settling Defendant 3M Company have reached an agreement on a national class action settlement to resolve claims for PFAS contamination in the public drinking water provided by Public Water Systems throughout the United States. 3M is obligated under this Settlement Agreement to pay a Settlement Amount of up to Twelve Billion Five Hundred Million dollars ($12,500,000,000). This is the largest drinking water settlement in American history. The Court-appointed Co-Leads of MDL 2873 Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee (“PEC”) and Interim Class Counsel Michael A. London of Douglas & London, P.C.; Scott Summy of Baron Budd; and Paul J. Napoli of Napoli Shkolnik – consider this settlement to be in the best interests of the proposed class. This agreement represents the first of many steps to begin to redress the harms of PFAS contamination in America’s drinking water supplies.

This proposed nationwide class settlement resulted from many months of negotiations between the parties and comes just weeks after the firms announced a $1.185 Billion settlement with DuPont and Chemours. The agreement with 3M remains subject to Court approval by the Honorable Richard Gergel (the MDL Judge) in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. Once preliminary approval is granted by Judge Gergel, Court-approved notice will begin to proposed class members, which includes Public Water Systems across America that have detected PFAS in their drinking water supplies, those that have yet to test, and those who detect PFAS after testing.

PFAS is a family of chemicals that pose a significant danger to human health, as well as to the environment. As the only company that manufactured and/or sold aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) containing PFOS, 3M had a large market share of PFAS-related liabilities. There remain many other chemical manufacturers that have not settled their share of the public drinking water PFAS-related liabilities which the PEC continues to pursue.

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