Chelsea Dickerson
Dickerson Oxton attorney Chelsea Dickerson is a dedicated advocate for injury victims, focusing her practice on personal injury and mass tort litigation. As co-founder of the firm, she has helped recover millions of dollars for clients in serious injury, trucking accident, motorcycle accident, and wrongful death cases. Chelsea is known for her aggressive, evidence-driven approach and her commitment to holding insurance companies and negligent parties accountable. She also represents consumers nationwide in complex pharmaceutical and medical device litigation.
From the 1960s into the 2000s, aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) dominated fire suppression across the United States. Highly effective in its intended application, AFFF was nonetheless saturated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) now known to be toxic to humans and animals. These chemicals are especially dangerous because they persist in the environment without degrading, and they can accumulate in the tissues of the human body – and even in our food supply. Because AFFF is understood to have been extremely hazardous to human health, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s, many people were exposed to AFFF regularly at their jobs, claims for compensation nationwide have surged, creating the conditions for mass tort litigation.
At Dickerson Oxton, we are proud to represent Kansas City families as they navigate the complexities involved in this type of case. Call our office today at (816) 542-6599 to schedule a consultation and get a professional evaluation to determine whether you have a strong AFFF case.
What Does Mass Tort Litigation Mean?
Mass tort litigation is in some respects similar to the class action lawsuits with which more people may be familiar. Both case types belong to the general area of personal injury claims, and as a rule, they are filed in similar contexts and for similar reasons. They differ in how they structure the plaintiff-defendant relationship. In a class action lawsuit, many individual parties who might otherwise each have a separate claim against the defendant come together to form a “class” and pursue compensation through a single lawsuit, as a group (or “class”). In mass tort litigation, each plaintiff files suit separately – but because they are filing against the same defendant and over the same tort(s), often there are practical benefits to the plaintiffs and their legal representatives to coordinate the pre-trial preparation, particularly when it comes to the discovery process.
When Would You Participate in Mass Tort Litigation vs. Filing a Class Action Lawsuit?
The potential reasons for pursuing mass tort litigation are often easiest to understand by reference to the advantages and disadvantages afforded by class action lawsuits. Essentially, mass tort litigation helps to account for contexts in which many different parties may have been injured by the same tort and tortfeasor, but the class action framework does not offer compelling advantages in the particular situation.
Forming a Class To Take Action
A class action gets its name from the fact that step of filing a lawsuit in civil court over a personal injury claim is called a legal “action,” and the action is filed, not by any individual plaintiff, but by a group whose representatives are alleged to collectively constitute an “affected class” – a body of people who are alike in the damages they have suffered as a result of the defendant’s alleged misconduct. Although the structuring of a class for the purposes of filing a lawsuit is not otherwise similar to business formation, the “class” setup allows the group to file a single action as the sole plaintiff in much the same way that creating a business “entity” enables the many different individuals and indeed departments that may make up a business to engage in transactions as a unit. This is a comparison that should not be taken too far, but essentially, a settlement offer will be accepted or rejected by the class, rather than by individuals operating independently. In the same way, a judgment delivered in court will find in favor of the class or against it, rather than addressing individual claims.
Class Action Lawsuits: When To Join Forces
Class action lawsuits can be enormously effective in situations where all the injured parties were injured in roughly similar ways and suffered generally comparable damages. Some of the more famous class action lawsuits in recent history have involved data privacy breaches, deceptive advertising practices, and product liability claims.
Generally, the premise behind these cases is that all of the individuals who sign on as representatives of the injured class have suffered roughly equivalent losses as a result of the defendant’s conduct. Moreover, there must be many more individuals similarly affected who are not directly participating in the pursuit of compensation. A few individuals – sometimes a few dozen – stand in for the whole class, and typically work with professional representation to secure a share of a settlement or award of damages for all who meet the general criteria for inclusion in that class.
Claiming Compensation From a Class Action Settlement: Safety First
This structure helps to explain why you may sometimes receive notices from companies with whom you have held an account, informing you of your right to submit a claim under a recently approved settlement based on when you opened your account and related factors. The frequency with which this scenario plays out also helps to explain why fake notices of this type are a favorite tool of scam artists trying to gain easy access to your online login credentials and financial information, so as a safety note we would like to add that you should always verify the details of any such method independently, rather than clicking a link or giving a direct response. As Washington University in St. Louis notes, most of the time, there will be a history of news reports for any legitimate class action settlements. In addition to verifying that a settlement does really exist and confirming who is eligible to claim a share of the compensation, these reports will also usually describe the procedures for filing your claim through the appropriate channels.
Mass Tort Litigation: Pursuing Compensation for Individual Harms
Mass tort litigation may make sense when there are many plaintiffs injured by the same conduct, but the types and amounts of the damages involved differ significantly across this group. Although each case could theoretically proceed in isolation, often there are advantages to mass tort litigation even when the collectivist approach that underlies a class action lawsuit does not suit the circumstances.
Numerous claims arising from aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) may fit into this category. One of the mass tort attorneys with Dickerson Oxton may be able to help you determine whether you have a strong case to file a claim based on the damages you have suffered due to AFFF exposure.
What Is AFFF?
AFFF has been a staple of firefighting activity for decades because it is a highly effective fire suppressant. The National Fire Sprinklers Association dates the foam’s introduction back to the 1960s, when the earliest version of AFFF was developed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory. Among the several reasons for AFFF’s ready adoption were its low viscosity, which made it easy for firefighters to spread quickly over large areas, and its ability to combat even the liquid fuel fires that were difficult to extinguish using more traditional methods, and which could easily become catastrophic if not quickly controlled.
Why Is AFFF Effective?
The efficacy of AFFF as a fire suppressant is unfortunately tied to the same chemical composition that makes it hazardous for human exposure. The foam’s film-forming properties are largely attributable to its concentration of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), dubbed “forever chemicals” because of their resistance to breaking down in the environment. Just as PFAS contribute to the slick finish of non-stick cookware, they facilitate the rapid spread-and-smother action of AFFF when it is applied to flame. The substances themselves are also fire-resistant. Unlike throwing a blanket for small fires or soil for larger conflagrations, AFFF resists the heat to which it is exposed, does not catch fire itself, and to a large extent continues spreading as the film forms, rather than evaporating into a gas when exposed to extreme temperatures.
Military and Industrial Uses as Fire Suppressant
In the decade following the product’s introduction, the United States government propagated the use of AFFF across all branches of the military and every type of base and installation. Even into the 2020s, the military remains the largest single purchaser of modern-day AFFF nationwide. Many local fire stations were also early adopters, as AFFF could often be faster and more reliable than water at extinguishing dangerous blazes. For its industrial application in petroleum processing, of course, AFFF’s efficiency at smothering flames in burning liquid fuel (e.g., gasoline or diesel, or their unrefined precursors) was central to the foam’s early adoption by the oil industry and continues to serve as the primary argument for keeping large quantities on-site and ready to use.
Moving Away From AFFF
Today, the health hazards of extensive PFAS exposure are widely acknowledged, although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notes that more research is needed to identify all of the long-term consequences of bioaccumulation (substances building up in the body). Although many products containing some level of PFAS remain on the market, the production of AFFF – which has relied so heavily on PFAS incorporation – has steadily declined over the past two decades. Companies that once participated in AFFF production have, in many cases, transitioned or are in the process of transitioning to compositions seen as more environmentally friendly.
Non-Fluorine Options for Fire Control
Some of these changes have involved the specific type of PFAS incorporated into the foam, as for a time there was an expectation – no longer widely supported – that short-chain PFAS would be less bioaccumulative, and therefore safer to use, than the long-chain variants. Since the early 2000s, however, non-fluorine alternatives to traditional AFFF have been gaining ground in the development of updated chemical formulas that build on the original “aqueous film-forming” breakthrough but are aimed at ensuring biodegradability and reduced toxicity compared to the AFFF versions in use through the end of the 20th century.
Compensation for PFAS Cancers
Even as industrial shifts toward updated chemical formulations continue, lawsuits over intensive PFAS exposure in a variety of contexts have spread widely. These claims have been centered predominantly on the development of cancers linked to PFAS exposure, although information available through the National Library of Medicine (NLM) confirms that PFAS exposure can have long-term adverse effects on reproductive ability, endocrine regulation, liver function, and potentially other areas of health, as research remains ongoing.
Consulting with a lawyer may help you determine whether you have a claim. In general terms, however, to file an AFFF claim on their own behalf, an individual would need to be able to show that they had been repeatedly or consistently exposed to AFFF in their working environment, in the period from the 1970s onward, and that they had suffered adverse health effects clearly attributable to PFAS exposure. Again, this would mean the development of a cancer with a documented link to PFAS. Kansas City families might have a wrongful death claim if these AFFF criteria applied to a loved one who has since died of the PFAS-linked cancer.
Multidistrict Litigation and Mass Tort AFFF Claims
Although plaintiffs seeking compensation may often feel that the wheels of justice turn more slowly than they might like, courts – both state and federal – tend to place a high value on efficiency, and toward that end they employ a variety of tools and techniques to try and streamline legal proceedings where possible. As the National Sea Grant Law Center (NSGLC) explains, multidistrict litigation (MDL) is one of these tools, and in response to the growing number of active AFFF cases across multiple states, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation established an AFFF MDL in 2018, centering proceedings in South Carolina.
Mass tort litigation is still underway for many of the plaintiffs who have filed AFFF claims; as of early September 2025, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation listed 12,915 actions pending in the MDL before Judge Richard M. Gergel. More individuals and families continue to discover that their lives have been impacted by the long-term consequences of high levels of PFAS exposure through AFFF use.
Discuss Your History of AFFF Exposure With a Kansas City Attorney
Given the extraordinarily rapid adoption of AFFF across multiple industries, numerous individuals have sustained high-dose exposures to the “forever chemicals” contained in the foam. Some have died of cancers that their families allege were caused by long-term exposure to the PFAS used in AFFF. Further complicating the issue, the “forever” nature of PFAS has meant that even some people never directly involved in firefighting may have encountered hazardous levels of PFAS, particularly if they worked in industries where AFFF use was common. Knowing whether you have an actionable claim under such complex circumstances can be difficult. A conversation with one of our experienced mass tort lawyers may help Kansas City residents to gain a clearer understanding of their legal options. Call (816) 542-6599 today to book a consultation.