National “Forever Chemical” Settlements: Swift Justice or Gross Disservice?
By Dane Whitman

A new star has risen over the field of mass toxic tort litigation. Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a non-stick waterproof coating, is the subject of over ten billion dollars in legal settlements between manufacturers and public water system operators.[1] PFAS have earned the name “forever chemicals” for their resistance to biodegradation in the environment as well as their tendency to accumulate in our bodies over time.[2] While one manufacturer alone has settled with public water system operators for $10.3 billion, some stakeholders have called this amount “grossly inadequate.”[3] Do these settlements serve swift justice for communities with polluted water systems, or do these deals underestimate PFAS’s harmful effects and shield manufacturers from future liability? Given the multifaceted extent of PFAS’s impact on public health, stakeholders should be cautious of settlement agreements that undervalue costs in return for short term money gains.

What exactly do experts know about “forever chemicals” and their impact on public health? The PFAS chemical class encompasses over 15,000 chemicals, many of which manufacturers have used in consumer products such as clothing, cookware, and food packaging.[4] Over 200 million Americans likely drink water from PFAS-contaminated sources, and PFAS persists in the human bodies for decades following exposure.[5] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes that peer reviewed studies have linked PFAS exposure to adverse impacts on reproductive health, child development, cancer risk, immune system and endocrine system performance, as well as cholesterol levels and obesity risk.[6] Meanwhile, the EPA also acknowledges that “thousands of PFAS with potentially varying effects and toxicity levels” will require more research to fully understand.[7]

Over the past decade, the federal government and states have taken decisive action to regulate PFAS. Since Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, states have received roughly $1 billion each year to remediate the harmful effects of PFAS and other emerging contaminants.[8] The EPA also established a safe drinking water limit for six PFAS compounds, requiring public water systems to monitor and comply with limits by 2029.[9] Further, certain states including Vermont and Maine have enacted legislation addressing upstream manufacture of PFAS by prohibiting its use in certain consumer products.[10] Meanwhile, hundreds of proposed bills related to PFAS regulation are currently pending in state legislatures across the country.[11] Given PFAS’s relatively recent emergence as a harmful chemical, litigators are reaching settlement agreements with remarkable speed.

PFAS settlement litigators should glean important lessons from previous mass tort settlements. In particular, the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) and the Opioid Purdue Pharma-Sackler Family Settlement Agreement provide insights for future mass tort litigators.[12] Key takeaways from these settlements suggest that litigators should (1) spend settlement funds on focused strategies to mitigate harm; (2) provide comprehensive awards to address past, present, and future harms; and (3) avoid overbroad liability shields barring future civil claims.

For example, the Tobacco MSA demonstrates the risks of broad settlement terms that do not require funds to be spent on mitigating harm. The 1998 Tobacco MSA provided $12.75 billion to plaintiffs over five years.[13] While these funds were “intended” to mitigate youth smoking, the settlements did not require state legislatures to spend settlement funds for these purposes.[14] This led to “a vast majority of the funds being spent on non-tobacco related matters.”[15] While the Tobacco MSA only included states (rather than individual plaintiffs), it did not preempt individual claims.[16]

Conversely, the Opioid Purdue Pharma-Sackler Settlement Agreement demonstrates the risks of undervaluing the costs of harm while providing overbroad liability shields against future claims. This settlement originally required the opioid manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, to provide $4.5 billion dollars for addiction treatment and prevention initiatives.[17] However, this agreement received a negative reaction from plaintiffs because it provided inadequate awards and attempted to shield Purdue Pharma’s owners (the Sackler family) from future civil liability.[18] The Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision) remanded the agreement for further negotiation after finding that the settlement agreement’s liability shield for the Sackler family violated bankruptcy law.[19] This led parties to renegotiate the settlement, increasing the settlement amount to $7.5 billion while maintaining the Sackler family’s civil liability for future claims.[20]

What role, then, do legal settlements play at this early stage of our national PFAS response? First, unlike the Tobacco MSA, settlement agreements regarding PFAS should ensure that funds are used to mitigate pollution and health risks. However, these awards may be difficult to adequately quantify while public health experts are still uncovering the extent of PFAS’s harmful effects on the human body.[21] Second, settlements should contemplate awards that both fund public mitigation and compensate private damages. Settlement awards limited to remediating municipal water systems overlook communities’ harm from past, present, and future exposure. Finally, settlement negotiators should avoid overbroad shields to future liability, especially while the cost of exposure remains difficult to quantify. Settlement terms that undervalue damages while barring civil plaintiffs from exercising future legal action are a disservice to impacted communities.

Plaintiffs across the United States are already reaching settlements with PFAS manufacturers—notwithstanding scholars’ fledgling understanding of PFAS’s harmful effects. While this swift action reflects a growing national consensus regarding the risks of PFAS, the extent PFAS’s harmful effects is still an emerging research field. Litigators should be wary of closing the door to future civil claims until the public health and legal fields reach a firmer calculus to quantify the past, present, and future harms of PFAS.

[1] Lisa Friedman and Vivian Giang, 3M Reaches $10.3 Billion Settlement in ‘Forever Chemicals’ Suit, N.Y. Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/business/3m-settlement-forever-chemicals-lawsuit.html (last visited Oct. 14, 2025).

[2] Id.

[3] Clark Mindock, 3M DuPont PFAS Settlements Called Inadequate by Cities, Other Objectors, PFAS Project Lab, https://pfasproject.com/2023/11/15/3m-dupont-pfas-settlements-called-inadequate-by-cities-other-objectors/ (last visited Oct. 14, 2025).

[4] Symposium, The Environmental Justice Implications of PFAS, 54 Env’t L. Rep., 10911, 10911–12 (2024).

[5] Id. at 10912.

[6] Our Current Understanding of the Human Health and Environmental Risks of PFAS, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency, https://www.epa.gov/pfas/our-current-understanding-human-health-and-environmental-risks-pfas (last visited Oct. 15, 2025).

[7] Id.

[8] Memorandum from Marietta Echeverria, Director of Ground Water and Drinking Water to the EPA Regional Water Division Directors (June 17, 2025), https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-06/fy25-ecsdc-funding-memo-final.pdf.

[9] Final PFAS National Drinking Water Regulation, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency, https://www.epa.gov/pfas/our-current-understanding-human-health-and-environmental-risks-pfas (last visited Oct. 14, 2025).

[10] Vt. Stat. Ann. § 2494; Me. Stat. tit. 38, § 1614.

[11] Noelle E. Wooten & Elizabeth Kaskins, States Step Up as Federal PFAS Regulations Retreat, BAKER DONELSON, https://www.bakerdonelson.com/states-step-up-as-federal-pfas-regulations-retreat (last visited Oct. 14, 2025).

[12] Kayla Ahmed, Settling for Less? An Analysis of the Use of Settlement Agreements to Mitigate Non-Communicable Diseases, 35 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 489, 493 (2022).

[13] Id. at 494.

[14] Id.

[15] Id.

[16] Id. at 495.

[17] Id. at 499–50.

[18] Id. at 450.

[19] Harrington v. Purdue Pharma, 603 U.S. 204, 227 (2024).

[20] Purdue Pharma, Sacklers Reach New $7.4 Billion Opioid Settlement, npr, https://www.npr.org/2025/06/16/nx-s1-5435318/purdue-pharma-sacklers-reach-new-7-4-billion-opioid-settlement (last visited Oct. 14, 2025).

[21] U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency, supra note 6.