Published July 23, 2026
The AFFF firefighting foam litigation's first personal-injury bellwether trial was supposed to begin in October 2025, testing claims that PFAS exposure from firefighting foam caused kidney cancer. Instead, Judge Richard Gergel postponed it after discovering a substantial backlog of cases that had been filed but not yet formally entered on the docket with complete short-form pleadings.
To address the backlog, the court opened a "filing facilitation window" running from August 15 to September 5, 2025, giving claimants a firm deadline to get outstanding cases properly filed, including allowing consolidated complaints covering up to 150 plaintiffs at a time to help manage the sheer volume moving through the system. The court made clear that AFFF lawsuits could still be filed after that window closed, but would become subject to new, stricter procedural requirements.
The filing window had its intended effect: the MDL added more than 1,300 new cases in October 2025 alone — one of the largest single-month increases the litigation had seen — with additional cases continuing to flow in through the following months. As of mid-2026, the court still hasn't set a new date for the first personal-injury bellwether trial, meaning no jury has yet weighed in on an individual AFFF injury claim.
A postponed bellwether trial doesn't affect the validity of individual claims — it simply means the litigation remains in a pretrial, evidence-building phase rather than moving toward verdicts or a global settlement. If you were a firefighter, servicemember, or industrial worker regularly exposed to AFFF and later diagnosed with cancer or another qualifying condition, it's still worth getting a free eligibility review while the litigation develops. See Atumio's AFFF Firefighting Foam Lawsuit page or start a free case review.