3M & DuPont PFAS Lawsuit

3M: The Primary AFFF Manufacturer

3M Company of Saint Paul, Minnesota was the primary manufacturer of PFOS-based AFFF from the 1960s through its voluntary production halt in 2000. 3M developed AFFF in partnership with the United States Navy, which mandated the foam's use at all military airfields. For nearly four decades, 3M was the dominant supplier of AFFF to the Department of Defense, commercial airports, industrial facilities, and municipal fire departments. The company's Scotchgard and other consumer products also contained PFAS, but AFFF was the largest single source of PFAS environmental contamination.

3M's internal knowledge of PFAS toxicity is extensively documented through litigation discovery. In the 1970s, 3M's own studies found PFAS in workers' blood at 1,000 times normal levels. Company toxicologists concluded that PFOA and PFOS "should be regarded as toxic." 3M hired Professor John Giesy to conduct research designed to keep the PFAS science "company-friendly." Despite knowing of the persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity of PFAS, 3M continued manufacturing and selling AFFF without warning users for another 24 years.

3M has paid enormous sums to resolve PFAS claims: $10.3 billion for water utility settlements (2023), $850 million to the State of Minnesota (2018), and additional amounts in smaller settlements. In 2023, 3M announced it would exit PFAS manufacturing entirely by the end of 2025 — a decision driven by the scale of litigation and regulatory liability. Despite these payments, the company's personal injury exposure in MDL 2873 remains substantial, with over 15,216 individual claims pending.

DuPont: The PFOA Story

E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company — known simply as DuPont — manufactured PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) at its Washington Works facility in Parkersburg, West Virginia from the 1950s through 2015. DuPont used PFOA in the production of Teflon and other fluoropolymer products, and the chemical was released into the Ohio River and surrounding air, contaminating the drinking water of communities across the Mid-Ohio Valley for decades.

DuPont's concealment of PFOA toxicity is one of the most extensively documented cases of corporate malfeasance in environmental law. In 1980, two of eight pregnancies among PFOA-exposed workers resulted in birth defects — DuPont did not disclose this to regulators or workers. Throughout the 1990s, DuPont's animal studies showed PFOA caused tumors in laboratory rats — the company continued discharging PFOA into the environment. Attorney Robert Bilott's landmark litigation against DuPont, beginning with the Tennant case in 2001, forced the creation of the C8 Science Panel and exposed decades of corporate concealment.

DuPont has since restructured into three separate companies: DuPont de Nemours (the successor company), Chemours (spun off in 2015 to assume fluorochemical liabilities), and Corteva Agriscience (spun off in 2019). Together, these three entities settled water utility claims for $1.185 billion and previously settled approximately 3,550 C8 personal injury claims for $670.7 million. The corporate restructuring has been criticized as an attempt to isolate liabilities, but all three successor entities remain defendants in MDL 2873.

The combined liability of 3M, DuPont and its successors, and other AFFF manufacturers and distributors for personal injury claims represents one of the largest remaining exposures in environmental mass tort litigation. The evidence of corporate knowledge and concealment — spanning decades and documented through internal company records — provides the foundation for both compensatory and punitive damages claims.