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

CHARLESTON, S.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Interim Class Counsel in the AFFF multi-district litigation (“MDL”) and settling Defendants are DuPont de Nemours, Inc.; The Chemours Company and the Chemours Company FC, LLC; Corteva, Inc. and E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company n/k/a EIDP, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as “DuPont”) have reached agreement on the material terms of a class action settlement to resolve claims for PFAS contamination in the drinking water provided by community water systems throughout the United States. Settling Defendants’ obligation under this Settlement Agreement, is to pay a Settlement Amount of One Billion One Hundred eight-five million dollars ($1,185,000,000). The Court-appointed co-leads of the Plaintiff Executive Committee (“PEC”) – 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 class members. 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 on the eve of the first community water provider trial. The agreement remains subject to Court approval by the Honorable Richard Gergel 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 putative class members, which includes community water systems that have detected PFAS in their drinking water and those who have yet to detect any PFAS in their drinking water.

PFAS is a family of chemicals that pose a significant danger to human health, as well as to the environment. As one of many companies involved in the production and use of PFAS, both alone and in end products containing PFAS as an active ingredient (including AFFF), DuPont had a relatively minimal market share of PFAS-related liabilities. There remains many other chemical manufacturers that have not settled their share of the PFAS related liabilities which the PEC continues to pursue.

In addition, many public water systems may have other PFAS- or AFFF-related claims alleging damages to something other than drinking water: including, claims for soil or groundwater contamination, property damage clean-up and remediation, or natural resource damages. The agreement does not release any claims beyond those related to PFAS contamination in public water systems’ drinking water. Class members – along with other injured person(s), natural or legal – may continue to pursue non-drinking water claims through available legal channels. Additional details will be provided in the Court-approved notice, which dissemination will begin shortly after preliminary approval of the agreement.