A federal judge has ruled Chemours and DuPont are responsible for PFAS entering the properties of thousands of North Carolinians, a major development in a class-action lawsuit over contamination from the Fayetteville Works plant.
The case covers more than 180,000 households that received contaminated drinking water from utilities downstream of the plant or from private wells in the surrounding area.
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The ruling settles one key question before a jury trial scheduled for March 4, 2027: whether the companies are liable for PFAS entering those properties without permission.
The ruling does not determine damages, which will be a major issue at the March trial.
The lawsuit seeks compensation for property-related costs residents say they have shouldered because of the contamination, including bottled water, reverse-osmosis filtration systems and replacing water heaters.
What the judge decided
The legal claim at issue is called trespass. In this case, that doesn't mean the judge found Chemours or DuPont deliberately set out to contaminate people's homes.
Instead, the court found there was no factual dispute that PFAS from Fayetteville Works entered class members' properties without authorization and that the actions leading to that contamination were intentional.
Plaintiffs' counsel told WRAL News that means the jury won't have to decide that question at trial.
Other claims, including negligence and nuisance, remain unresolved. But attorneys for the residents say damages are expected to be a major focus of the March trial.
Who is covered by the lawsuit?
The class includes people who received drinking water from public utilities drawing from the Cape Fear River downstream of Fayetteville Works, including customers in New Hanover, Brunswick, Pender, Bladen and Cumberland counties.
It also includes certain private well owners whose water tested positive for PFAS associated with the plant.
The lawsuit dates to 2017, when GenX and other PFAS associated with Fayetteville Works became a major public concern after researchers found the chemicals in the Cape Fear River and downstream drinking water.
PFAS are a large group of synthetic chemicals sometimes called "forever chemicals" because many persist for years in the environment.
The federal court allowed residents to pursue the property claims together as a class in 2023. Chemours and DuPont unsuccessfully asked a federal appeals court to review that decision.
What residents are seeking
Unlike some PFAS lawsuits that focus on alleged health effects, this case primarily seeks compensation for damage to property and household expenses.
Plaintiffs say those costs include buying bottled water, installing filtration systems and replacing water heaters affected by contaminated water. Plaintiffs' attorneys say those expenses continue to accumulate while the case remains unresolved.
The case is separate from North Carolina's 2019 consent order requiring Chemours to reduce PFAS releases from Fayetteville Works and provide drinking-water remedies to qualifying residents around the plant.
It is also one of several lawsuits stemming from decades of PFAS releases associated with Fayetteville Works. In a separate case involving private well owners near the plant, the same federal judge previously found Chemours and DuPont liable for trespass and nuisance.
Several issues still have to be resolved before the March trial, including challenges from the companies to the class action and portions of the plaintiffs' case.
If the case reaches a jury as scheduled, one of the central questions will be how much the contamination has cost affected North Carolinians — and how much Chemours and DuPont could be required to pay.
Chemours did not immediately respond to a request for comment.