Published
August 18, 2026
This settlement covers owners of single-family homes and townhomes in a defined class area in the Canoga Park and Winnetka neighborhoods of Los Angeles, where plaintiffs allege that operations by Northrop Grumman's alleged predecessors left trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene in the soil and groundwater. Northrop Grumman denies the allegations, and a $75 million fund would pay eligible homeowners estimates ranging from about $7,494 to about $21,110 per home if you file a claim with proof of ownership by October 10, 2026.
Current Status
Claims are open. A claim form with proof of ownership attached must be postmarked or received by the class administrator no later than October 10, 2026; the notice gives that date without a timezone, so treat it as a hard postmark date. Anyone who wants to opt out or object has an earlier deadline of September 25, 2026. The court has granted preliminary approval and authorized notice, which was dated August 11, 2026, and has set a final approval hearing for November 12, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. No final approval order has been entered, and no payment date had been announced as of August 18, 2026.
Status
Claims Open
Final approval hearing November 12, 2026
Claim Deadline
October 10, 2026
Postmarked or received · opt out or object by September 25, 2026
Estimated Payout
About $7,494 – $21,110 per home
Estimates only, by sub-area · about $444 for former owners · one payment per home
Proof Required
Yes
A document showing ownership, plus the Unique ID and PIN from your notice to file online
What Changed Recently?
The parties reached this settlement in the middle of trial, after years of litigation and after the court certified two classes on July 1, 2024. That is the event that opened the claim process: notice went out to the class dated August 11, 2026, carrying the court-set dates, and a claim form is now live on the official settlement website.The underlying case alleges that contaminants in the soil and groundwater beneath the class area, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE), came from operations conducted in the late 1960s to early 1970s by alleged legal predecessors of the defendants at a Canoga Park facility. The complaint pleads negligence, private nuisance and trespass, and claims the contamination has depressed property values and left homes needing vapor-intrusion mitigation measures.
Northrop Grumman Corporation and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation deny all of it. Their position, as summarized in the notice, is that they are not responsible for any alleged contamination, that there is no evidence of lost property value in the class area, that there is no evidence contamination from the alleged predecessor's operations is present in any home or poses any measurable risk of ever being present, and that no property needs mitigation measures. They also contend their remediation work has been successful and that the groundwater plume has been reduced and will continue to be reduced. The court has not decided who is right, and the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing or liability by anyone.
Who Qualifies?
The settlement class is all people who own a single-family home or townhome within the class area as of the date of the settlement notice, plus all people who owned a single-family home or townhome within the class area as of July 1, 2024 but have since sold it as of the notice date. Employees of the defendants are excluded.Eligibility turns on ownership and location, not on damage. The notice states directly that you are still in the class and can still file a claim even if you do not believe your own property is damaged.
The class area sits in the Canoga Park and Winnetka area of the west San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, and it is drawn as a specific mapped boundary rather than by ZIP code. It is split into three geographic sub-areas — A, B and C — and the sub-area a home falls in determines the payment. Because the boundary is mapped street by street, the only reliable way to check is the official settlement website, which hosts the class area map, an address search tool and a list of covered addresses organized by sub-area. If a notice and claim form arrived in the mail or by email without you requesting one, public records already flag you as a possible current or former owner in the class area.
One structural note worth knowing before you file: eligibility runs per property, not per person. A home with three owners is one eligible property.
How Much Can You Get?
The settlement creates a $75,000,000 cash fund, and none of it reverts to the defendants. Out of that fund come court-approved attorneys' fees and costs, court-approved service awards for the class representatives, and the costs of administration. What is left is the net settlement proceeds, which is what class members share.The allocation runs in two steps. First, $100,000 of the net proceeds is set aside for former owners — people who owned in the class area on July 1, 2024 but had sold as of the notice date — and split equally among those who file valid claims. Second, the rest is divided among current homeowners by sub-area, with each sub-area's share split equally among the valid claims inside it:
- Sub-Area A — approximately 789 homes — receives 40 percent of the remaining net proceeds.
- Sub-Area B — approximately 727 homes — receives 28 percent of the remaining net proceeds.
- Sub-Area C — approximately 1,778 homes — receives 32 percent of the remaining net proceeds.
Working from what class counsel calls conservative estimates and assumptions about administrative costs, fees, service awards and the number of valid claims, the notice gives these per-home figures: about $21,110 in Sub-Area A, about $16,037 in Sub-Area B, about $7,494 in Sub-Area C, and about $444 for former owners.
Those are estimates, and the notice labels them as such. The actual figure depends on what the court awards in fees, costs and service awards, what administration ends up costing, and how many valid claims come in. Final amounts may be more or less. For scale on the fee side: class counsel intends to ask for up to 40 percent of the fund ($30,000,000), plus costs estimated not to exceed $3,000,000 and administration costs estimated not to exceed $200,000, and up to $30,000 in a service award for each class representative. If the settlement is appealed, class counsel intends to request up to 45 percent ($33,750,000) for the added work of defending it. The court decides the actual amounts, and every dollar of them comes out of the same $75 million.
There is one payment per home no matter how many people own it. If a home in Sub-Area A is owned by three people and the sub-area figure lands at $21,110, a single $21,110 check is issued for that home and the co-owners divide it themselves. A home sold after July 1, 2024 can generate two payments — one to the former owner out of the $100,000 pool, one to the current owner out of the sub-area allocation — but they come from different pots.
What Proof or Notice ID Is Required?
This is a proof settlement in both senses. You must attach documentary proof that you owned the property either as of July 1, 2024 or as of the notice date, and the notice lists the acceptable document types: a property deed, a title insurance policy, a mortgage statement, a property tax statement or bill, a settlement or closing statement such as a HUD-1 or Closing Disclosure, a homeowners insurance policy declaration page, a certificate of title, a government record evidencing ownership, or a utility bill in the class member's name showing the class area address. There is also an "other" line for a document that does not fit those categories.Proof is verified. The administrator may request additional documentation if it needs more to confirm a claim.
Filing online adds a second requirement: the Unique ID and PIN printed on the claim form mailed to you. Those credentials gate the online portal, which is why this page is marked Proof Required rather than treating the ownership documents as the only hurdle. If you cannot locate your Unique ID or PIN, use the contact form on the official settlement website to reach the administrator rather than a link that arrives out of the blue.
The form also requires a signature under penalty of perjury, a verification that you are not an employee of Northrop Grumman Corporation or Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, your period of ownership, and identification of any co-owners. Anyone signing for a trust, estate or entity must certify their authority to do so. If you own more than one qualifying property in the class area, the notice directs you to file a separate claim form for each.
What Is the Deadline?
Three dates matter, and they are not the same date.- Claim deadline — October 10, 2026. The claim and release form, with the required proof of ownership, must be postmarked or received by the class administrator by that date, whether you mail it or submit it through the settlement website. The notice states the date without a timezone.
- Opt-out and objection deadline — September 25, 2026. A written exclusion request must be postmarked to the administrator by then and must include your name, address, telephone number, the address of your class area property and your signature. Exclusion cannot be done by phone or email, and you cannot exclude anyone but yourself. Objections must be postmarked by the same date, filed with the court and served on counsel for both sides, and must meet the content requirements set out in the notice. You cannot both opt out and object.
- Final approval hearing — November 12, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, before Judge Hernán D. Vera in Courtroom 5B of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Attendance is not required, and speaking at the hearing requires a notice of intention to appear inside a timely written objection.
Late opt-out requests are not accepted and have no effect. Class counsel's motion for attorneys' fees and costs is due to be filed no later than September 4, 2026 and posted on the settlement website at least 20 days before the objection deadline, so anyone who wants to see the fee request before deciding whether to object can.
How Do You Take Action?
The official settlement website is Canoga Park Class Action.com. It hosts the class area map, the address search, the address list by sub-area, the long-form notice in English and Spanish, the settlement agreement, the court documents and the online claim form.The minimum path to a payment is short: confirm your address falls in the class area and note the sub-area, complete the claim and release form, attach one acceptable ownership document, sign it under penalty of perjury, and submit it online with your Unique ID and PIN or by mail so it is postmarked or received by October 10, 2026. Keep a copy of what you send.
One caution the notice makes explicit: only claim forms submitted directly to the class administrator are valid. A claim form routed through a third-party claims aggregator will not be accepted, though the administrator says it will try to reach a claimant whose form arrives that way and explain how to file directly. Filing on the official settlement site is free, and a legitimate administrator does not charge a fee to release a settlement payment.
What Happens Next?
The next milestone is the November 12, 2026 final approval hearing, where the court will consider whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate, hear any timely objections, and rule on the requests for attorneys' fees, costs and service awards. The hearing may be postponed or adjourned without further notice.Approval alone does not release money. The notice warns that there may be appeals, that it is always uncertain whether and when appeals can be resolved, and that resolving them can take more than a year. The defendants fund the settlement within 30 days after the Effective Date as that term is defined in the settlement agreement, and the administrator then makes reasonable efforts to issue payments within 45 days after the Effective Date.
Checks stay valid for 180 days from mailing. If a check is not cashed in that window, the administrator will try to locate the class member and reissue a check with a 90-day expiration. If a class member cannot be located within 180 days after the original check expires, uncashed funds are redistributed equally among class members who cashed their checks on time, and anything left after one redistribution goes to a court-approved cy pres beneficiary.
We will update this page when the court rules or a payment schedule is announced.
Sources and Verification
- Notice of Class Action Settlement in Behar v. Northrop Grumman Corporation, et al., No. 2:21-cv-03946-HDV-SK (C.D. Cal.), dated August 11, 2026, authorized by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
- Claim and Release Form distributed with that notice, including the acceptable proof-of-ownership list and the online filing instructions.
- Frequently Asked Questions published by the class administrator on the official settlement website.
- Class Action Settlement Agreement and Release, filed as an exhibit in the docket and posted on the settlement website, including the release and the California Civil Code section 1542 waiver in Section 5.
- Official settlement website — Canoga Park Class Action.com, which hosts the class area map, the address search and the case documents.
Community contamination cases and property-value claims come up regularly on OCA. The closest analog in our coverage is the CSX Livingston derailment settlement, which paid Kentucky households near a chemical release, and readers looking at exposure questions rather than property value can start with our PFAS exposure investigation.
Questions
How do I find out whether my home is in the class area?
The official settlement website hosts a class area map, an address lookup tool and a list of the covered addresses organized by sub-area. Check your address there, because the sub-area your home falls in also determines which estimated payment applies. If you received a notice and claim form in the mail or by email without asking for one, public records already identify you as a possible current or former owner in the class area.
My spouse and I own the house together. Do we each get a payment?
No. The settlement pays one amount per single-family home or townhome regardless of how many people own it. If several co-owners each file a valid claim, the administrator issues a single check payable to all of them, and the co-owners divide it among themselves. The settlement agreement does not provide a procedure for resolving disagreements between co-owners.
I sold my home in the class area. Can I still claim?
You can if you owned the home on July 1, 2024 and sold it as of the August 11, 2026 notice date. Former owners share a separate $100,000 pool, which class counsel estimates at about $444 per eligible home rather than the much larger sub-area amounts. The person who owns the home now may file a separate claim under the sub-area allocation, so both claims can exist for the same property.
Does this settlement affect a health claim?
The notice states that the release is limited to property damage and mitigation measures, and that it does not release claims for personal injury, wrongful death, or medical monitoring. Those categories are carved out expressly. The release does cover unknown property-damage claims and includes a waiver of California Civil Code section 1542, so anyone weighing a separate claim should read Section 5 of the settlement agreement, which is posted on the official settlement website.
Why do the estimates differ so much between sub-areas?
The class area is split into three geographic sub-areas that receive different percentages of the net proceeds while containing very different numbers of homes. Sub-Area A gets 40 percent across roughly 789 homes, Sub-Area B gets 28 percent across roughly 727 homes, and Sub-Area C gets 32 percent across roughly 1,778 homes. Dividing a larger share among fewer homes is what produces the higher per-home estimate in Sub-Area A.
Official Settlement Notice
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Settlement Amount
$75,000,000
Non-reversionary · fees, costs, service awards and administration come out of the fund
Case Title
Behar v. Northrop Grumman Corporation, et al.
Case Number
2:21-cv-03946-HDV-SK
Court
U.S. District Court, Central District of California
Final Approval Hearing
November 12, 2026 at 10:00 AM PT
Before Judge Hernán D. Vera, Courtroom 5B, Los Angeles
Administrator
A.B. Data, Ltd.
Official Website
Canoga Park Class Action.com
