Published
September 8, 2026
Residents, property owners, workers and businesses inside the Abington Township area placed under shelter-in-place and voluntary evacuation orders during the February 2025 SPS Technologies plant fire may qualify to claim up to $5,000 from a $5 million class action settlement. Claims close December 3, 2026, and the Montgomery County court will not decide whether to approve the settlement until May 25, 2027.
Current Status
Claims are open. The deadline to file a claim form is December 3, 2026, and the separate deadline to opt out or object is November 3, 2026. The Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania has not yet decided whether to approve the settlement — a hearing on approval is scheduled for May 25, 2027. Nothing is paid before that ruling, and no payment date has been announced. Filing a claim now is what preserves the right to be paid if the court approves the deal.
Status
Claims Open
Claim Deadline
December 3, 2026
Online or postmarked · opt-out and objection deadline is November 3, 2026
Estimated Payout
Up to $5,000
Business losses up to $5,000 · property damage up to $300 · lost hourly wages up to $200 · plus a pro rata residual share
Proof Required
Yes
Documentation of the loss being claimed · no administrator-issued ID or notice code gates the form
What Changed Recently?
Class counsel announced the proposed settlement on September 4, 2026, and notice to the class began that week. SPS Technologies, LLC and its parent, Precision Castparts Corp., agreed to fund $5,000,000 to resolve claims brought on behalf of the neighborhood around the company's former plant at 301 Highland Avenue in Jenkintown, on the Abington Township line. The lawsuit alleges the companies are responsible for losses caused by the fire that burned at the facility from February 17 through February 22, 2025, during which Abington Township issued shelter-in-place orders and a temporary voluntary evacuation order for part of the surrounding area.Neither company has admitted liability, and the settlement contains no finding that either caused the losses alleged. The agreement is a compromise reached before the Montgomery County court decided the merits.
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Who Qualifies?
The settlement class has two halves, and both are fixed to a single date — February 17, 2025, the day the fire started.The first half is businesses: any business entity, including an individual or partnership doing business under a registered business name, that operated a physical place of business inside the Settlement Class Area as of February 17, 2025.
The second half is people and property: any individual or entity who owned real property, resided, or was employed at a physical place of business inside the Settlement Class Area as of that same date. Renters are covered by the "resided" branch, and people who commuted in to a job inside the area are covered by the "employed" branch even if they lived somewhere else.
The Settlement Class Area is not simply "near the plant." It is defined as the portion of Abington Township within a one-mile radius of the SPS facility, together with the Adjacent Area and the Voluntary Evacuation Zone as those are drawn in the settlement documents. The official settlement website publishes a map of the boundary, and an address a block outside it is outside the class. Check the address against the map before assuming either way.
How Much Can You Get?
The $5,000,000 is a gross fund, not a per-person figure. Court-approved attorneys' fees, costs and expenses of up to $1,750,000, administration costs, and service awards of $2,500 to the class representatives come out of it first, subject to the court's approval. What remains pays claims.Approved claims are paid against three documented tiers:
- Unreimbursed business losses — up to $5,000
- Unreimbursed property damage losses — up to $300
- Lost hourly employee wages — up to $200
After those are paid, money still left in the fund is distributed to approved claimants as a pro rata residual cash payment. That residual is the part nobody can quote in advance: it is arithmetic on the number of valid claims filed, so a light claim rate raises it and a heavy one lowers it. Treat every dollar figure on this page as a ceiling and an estimate, not a promised check.
The caps are also per category rather than cumulative in the way a single headline number suggests. A business that lost revenue and had property damaged is claiming under two tiers; an hourly worker at a shuttered business is claiming under one.
What Proof Is Required?
Yes — this settlement requires documentation, and that is the single most important thing to know before starting a claim. The claim form asks for records supporting the loss being claimed: business records for a business loss, wage or payroll records for lost hourly wages, and records of the damage and any reimbursement for a property damage claim. A claim submitted with no supporting documentation is a claim the administrator cannot approve.What this settlement does not have is an administrator-issued gate. There is no Class Member ID, Notice ID or PIN standing between a class member and the claim form, so somebody who never received a mailed notice can still find the form and file — which is not true of most data breach settlements. The barrier here is your own records, not a code someone else has to send you.
Anything already covered by insurance or otherwise reimbursed is outside the claim. The tiers are written around unreimbursed losses.
What Is the Deadline?
Claim forms must be submitted online or postmarked no later than December 3, 2026. The settlement documents state the date without an official timezone, so the date is what governs here.A second, earlier deadline matters to anyone considering their own lawsuit: November 3, 2026 is the deadline both to opt out of the class and to object to the settlement. Those are different acts with different consequences. Opting out removes a class member from the settlement entirely, forfeits any payment, and keeps the right to sue. Objecting keeps a class member in the settlement while asking the court not to approve it as written.
How Do You Take Action?
The claim form and the class-area map are on the official settlement website, SPS Settlement.com, which is run by the court-appointed administrator, Kroll Settlement Administration.The order that costs the least time: confirm the address falls inside the Settlement Class Area on the published map, gather the records for whichever tier applies, then file. Business claimants should expect to identify the business and the period of loss; hourly workers should expect to identify the employer and the shifts affected.
Filing on an official settlement website is free. No one needs to pay a third party to submit a claim, and a service offering to file on your behalf for a share of the payment is not affiliated with the court or the administrator.
What Happens Next?
The next scheduled event is the approval hearing on May 25, 2027, at which the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County will decide whether to approve the settlement and how much to award in attorneys' fees, costs and service awards. That is a long runway by class action standards — roughly eighteen months from the announcement — and it is the reason nobody should expect money in 2026.If the court approves the settlement, payments follow after any appeal period runs and the administrator finishes processing claims. If the court declines to approve it, the case returns to litigation and the claims filed under this agreement pay nothing. No payment date has been announced, and none can be until the court rules.
This page is informational and is not legal advice.
Sources and Verification
- Official settlement website and claim form — SPS Settlement.com, administered by Kroll Settlement Administration
- Settlement class area map published by the administrator
- Class counsel's settlement announcement, September 4, 2026
- Cottrell v. SPS Technologies, LLC, No. 2026-14052, Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
- Abington Township shelter-in-place and voluntary evacuation notices, February 2025
Questions
Do you have to have evacuated to file a claim?
No. The settlement class is defined by where you were on February 17, 2025, not by whether you left. It covers people who owned real property, resided, or were employed at a physical place of business inside the Settlement Class Area, plus businesses that operated a physical location there. Leaving during the voluntary evacuation is not a requirement.
Are renters covered, or only property owners?
Renters are covered. The class definition reaches anyone who resided inside the Settlement Class Area as of February 17, 2025, separately from the people who owned real property there. Owning is one route into the class, not the only one.
Is the $5 million split evenly among class members?
No. The fund first covers court-approved fees and administration costs, then pays documented losses up to the tier caps. Whatever is left is divided pro rata among approved claimants, so the residual portion depends on how many valid claims are filed and cannot be calculated in advance.
What happens if a class member does nothing?
Class members who file no claim receive no payment. They also stay in the class, which means that if the court approves the settlement they give up the right to sue SPS Technologies and Precision Castparts separately over the fire. Opting out by November 3, 2026 is what preserves the right to sue.
Does the settlement mean SPS Technologies admitted the fire caused harm?
No. The settlement resolves the claims without any admission of liability or wrongdoing by SPS Technologies or Precision Castparts. A court has made no finding that either company caused the losses alleged in the lawsuit.
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Settlement Amount
$5,000,000 gross fund
Case Title
Cottrell v. SPS Technologies, LLC
Case Number
No. 2026-14052
Court
Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Final Approval Hearing
May 25, 2027
The court has not yet ruled on approval
Administrator
Kroll Settlement Administration
Official Website
SPS Settlement.com
