Northrop Grumman Canoga Park / Winnetka Settlement

Who Was Eligible?

Who the settlement covered:

• The Class Area has no street-corner description, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. The administrator defines it as a map: an aerial image on page 2 of the notice, with a red outline and three color-coded sub-areas. There is no list of boundary streets in the notice, in the settlement agreement, or on the settlement website, so this page will not invent one. An approximate boundary is worse than none, because a house a block outside the line looks eligible right up until the claim is rejected.
• What the administrator gives you instead is better than a description. The settlement website carries the map, an address-search tool, and a list of every address inside the Class Area organized by sub-area. Type your address in. That is the whole eligibility test for location.
• Beyond location, the class is anyone who owns a single-family home or townhome inside that area as of 11 August 2026, the date the notice was mailed.
• Former owners count too: if you owned one there on 1 July 2024 and had sold it by 11 August 2026, you are in the former owners pool.
• Both can be true of the same house. The person who sold it claims from the former owners pool and the person who bought it claims from the sub-area allocation.
• Employees of Northrop Grumman are excluded. So are renters, who never owned anything to devalue.
• Whether you believe your own property was contaminated is irrelevant. The notice says so directly: you are included regardless of whether you think there is damage.

How Much Did It Pay?

The fund is $75,000,000 and non-reversionary, meaning no unclaimed portion goes back to Northrop Grumman. Out of it come the class members, court-approved attorneys' fees and costs, service awards of up to $30,000 for each class representative, and administration. What survives is called the Net Settlement Proceeds.

The first $100,000 is set aside for former owners and split equally between them, working out at roughly $444 each.

Everything remaining is divided by sub-area, and within each sub-area split equally among valid claims:

• Sub-Area A — about 789 homes, takes 40% → roughly $21,110 per home
• Sub-Area B — about 727 homes, takes 28% → roughly $16,037 per home
• Sub-Area C — about 1,778 homes, takes 32% → roughly $7,494 per home

Read those as estimates and nothing firmer. The final figure moves with the fees the court approves, the administration costs, and how many valid claims arrive. The notice says outright that actual amounts may be more or less.

One payment per home, whatever the ownership arrangement. Three people on the deed of a Sub-Area A property receive one check for about $21,110 made out to all three, and the settlement agreement offers no mechanism for resolving arguments about splitting it. That is left to the co-owners.

Payment is not quick. Northrop Grumman funds the settlement within 30 days of the Effective Date and the administrator aims to pay within 45 days of it, but the Effective Date itself waits on final approval and the exhaustion of any appeals, which the notice warns can take more than a year. Checks stay valid for 180 days.

How this claim was filed

This settlement is closed, so the steps below are kept for reference only — they no longer lead anywhere you can file.

• Send the claim form to the Class Administrator yourself. The notice is unusually blunt about this: only forms submitted directly to the administrator are accepted, and a form submitted to a third party such as a claims aggregator is not valid. If an aggregator does send one in, the administrator says it will contact you and explain how to file directly. No service can do this step for you.
• Check the address first at canogaparkclassaction.com, using the map, the address-search tool, or the list of covered addresses by sub-area.
• Attach proof of ownership. A document showing you own the home now, or owned it on 1 July 2024 and sold it since.
• A claim form came with the notice. To file online instead, you need the login details printed on that mailed form. Without it, call A.B. Data on 833-419-5050.
• The form must be postmarked or received by 10 October 2026. Opting out or objecting closed earlier, on 25 September 2026, and exclusion requests go to Behar v. Northrop Grumman Class Administrator, c/o A.B. Data Ltd., EXCLUSIONS, P.O. Box 173001, Milwaukee, WI 53217.
• Understand what you sign away. The release covers property damage and mitigation claims and includes a California Civil Code section 1542 waiver, which extends it to claims you do not yet know about. It does not touch personal injury, wrongful death or medical monitoring.
• The Final Approval Hearing is 12 November 2026 at 10 a.m. Pacific before Judge Hernán D. Vera. Nothing pays out until the court approves and appeals finish.

Frequently Asked Questions