Northrop Grumman soil contamination settlement: Fee Fight Ahead
- Fund
- $75,000,000
By Settlement Insight Data Desk · Reviewed by Leonard GoldbergPublished
Northrop Grumman Backs the $75 Million Canoga Park Settlement but Says It Will Oppose the Lawyers’ $30 Million Fee — Each $1 Million Cut Would Add About $1,342 to a Sub-Area A Home. Hearing November 12, 2026.
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The short answer: Northrop Grumman backs the deal, not the lawyers’ fee
The Northrop Grumman soil contamination settlement for Canoga Park and Winnetka homeowners has a new filing, and it signals a dispute over fees ahead of the final approval hearing. On October 19, 2026, Northrop Grumman’s lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher filed a short statement (Dkt. 441) saying the company “supports Plaintiffs’ request for final approval of the proposed class settlement because the settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate.” The same filing ends with a warning: “Northrop Grumman intends to oppose Plaintiffs’ application for attorney’s fees and costs.”
Class counsel are asking for 40 percent of the $75,000,000 fund — $30,000,000 — plus $2,371,230.09 in costs. That fee is the single biggest variable left in what homeowners who filed will receive. The per-home estimates in the October 13 final-approval motion (Dkt. 435) — $56,736.60 in Sub-Area A, $46,231.47 in B, $25,141.28 in C and $4,545.45 for former owners — all assume the full 40 percent is granted. Any amount the judge does not award stays in the fund for class members: class counsel’s own fee motion says “Defendants must pay the entire $75,000,000, and no portion returns to them under any circumstance.”
On October 22, 2026, a new entry appeared on the court docket, No. 442, labeled “Objection/Opposition (Motion related).” As of October 23, 2026 the document itself was not available on CourtListener or posted on the official settlement site, so we have not read it and cannot say which motion it opposes. No class member objected by the September 25 deadline. Nobody has been paid; payments come only after the Effective Date. We covered the claim counts on October 17 and the settlement terms on September 3.
What the fee fight could mean for each home’s check
Northrop Grumman pays $75,000,000 either way; the fee only decides how that money is split between the lawyers and the 1,151 claimants counted so far. Using the inputs in Dkt. 435 — costs of $2,371,230.09, service awards of $30,000 each for Jed and Alisa Behar, $200,000 for administration, the $100,000 former-owner pool and the October 13 claim counts — we recomputed the estimates at different fee levels. Our arithmetic reproduces the motion’s 40 percent figures to the cent. These are illustrations, not predictions.
| Fee awarded | Sub-Area A (298 claims) | Sub-Area B (256) | Sub-Area C (538) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40% — $30,000,000 (requested) | $56,736.60 | $46,231.47 | $25,141.28 |
| Counsel’s lodestar — $19,803,041.76 | about $70,424 | about $57,384 | about $31,206 |
| 25% — $18,750,000 | about $71,837 | about $58,536 | about $31,833 |
The simplest rule of thumb: at the October 13 claim counts, every $1 million cut from the fee adds about $1,342 to each Sub-Area A home, about $1,094 to each Sub-Area B home and about $595 to each Sub-Area C home. Former owners are not affected; they split a fixed $100,000, which works out to $4,545.45 each across 22 claims.
Class counsel defend the 40 percent. Their fee motion (Dkt. 432, filed September 4, 2026) says they “devoted 15,356.5 hours to this yearslong, high-risk, highly complex action, yielding a combined lodestar of $19,803,041.76 and a multiplier of 1.51.” They argue California law controls because the claims are state-law negligence, nuisance and trespass, and that “California has not adopted the Ninth Circuit’s 25% benchmark.” Northrop Grumman’s arguments against the fee are not yet in a document we could read. The estimates can also move for a second reason: 37 claims were still “undergoing additional auditing” as of October 13, and every additional approved claim in a sub-area lowers that sub-area’s per-home share. The motion itself says the actual amount “will depend on the Court’s award of attorneys’ fees and costs.”
What to do now, and the dates that remain
- Claim deadline: October 10, 2026 — passed. The official site states: “The deadline to file a claim has passed.”
- Opt-out and objection deadline: September 25, 2026 — passed. That deadline also covered objections to the fee request.
- Final approval hearing: November 12, 2026, 10:00 a.m. Pacific, Courtroom 5B, 350 W. 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012, before Judge Hernán D. Vera. The site lists it as the hearing “Including Hearing on Petition for Attorneys’ Fees, Costs, and Service Awards,” so the fee dispute should be argued the same day. You do not need to attend. The FAQ warns that “The hearing may be continued or adjourned without further notice”; check the official site before going.
- Payment: Northrop Grumman must fund the settlement “within 30 days after the Effective Date,” and the administrator aims to pay within 45 days after it. The Effective Date follows final approval and any appeals, which the FAQ says can take “perhaps more than a year.” The settlement agreement does not require the fee to be approved for the settlement to take effect, but an appeal of a fee ruling could still slow things down. That is our reading, not a court statement.
- When the check comes: checks are sent “by certified mail to the address on file,” one per home regardless of how many owners, and “remain valid for 180 days from the date of mailing.” If you have moved since filing, update your address with the administrator.
Real or scam: how to tell a Canoga Park settlement message is genuine
The only official site is CanogaParkClassAction.com, run by the administrator A.B. Data, and the only phone number is (833) 419-5050. Type both yourself instead of clicking a link in a text or email. In the October 13 motion the administrator reported that it “did not detect attempts at fraudulent claims and did not have issues with claim aggregators,” and the FAQ says “No Claim Form submitted to a third party (e.g., a claims aggregator) will be valid.”
Claims are now closed, so any message that offers to file for you, promises to speed up a payment before the November 12 hearing, or asks for a fee, a bank account number or a card number is not from this settlement. Payment is a mailed check sent after the Effective Date, not a transfer that you have to set up. News about the fee dispute does not change anything you need to do; there is no new form to fill out.
Context: why Northrop Grumman is backing a deal it says it could have won
Northrop Grumman still denies the allegations, and its October 19 statement explains why it calls the settlement fair to the class anyway: by its account, the homeowners faced real risk at trial and on appeal. On liability, the company contends that its testing of the named plaintiffs’ house “found no TCE in the soil vapors beneath the home,” that “state regulators determined that no home required mitigation,” and that it “distributed over 13,000 Fact Sheets detailing contamination and cleanup throughout the Class Area between 2015 and 2017,” which it says put residents on notice for statute-of-limitations purposes. On appeal, it points to Navarro v. Exxon Mobil Corp., a Ninth Circuit decision of August 5, 2025, holding that “exceedance of non-binding screening levels does not constitute ‘substantial harm’” for a nuisance claim. It also says it could have raised challenges to class certification. Without the settlement, it says, payment could have been “delayed for years or never happening at all.”
These are one side’s arguments in support of a settlement both sides now want approved; the court has not ruled on any of them. The plaintiffs allege that trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) from the former Litton plant at 8020 Deering Avenue reduced property values over the plume and that homes need vapor-intrusion mitigation. The settlement covers property damage and mitigation only. The official site says it “does not release any claims Settlement Class Members may have for personal injury, wrongful death or medical monitoring.” The case is Behar, et al. v. Northrop Grumman Corp., et al., No. 2:21-cv-03946-HDV-SK, in the Central District of California.
