News Coverage
June 9, 2023
US judge rejects 3M effort to resolve earplug lawsuits in bankruptcy
A U.S. judge on Friday dismissed the bankruptcy of 3M subsidiary Aearo Technologies, rejecting an effort to resolve nearly 260,000 lawsuits alleging that 3M military earplugs caused hearing loss for veterans and U.S. service members.
Reuters
February 3, 2023
Veterans Suing Over 3M Earplugs Want Bankruptcy Case Tossed
Lawyers for veterans suing 3M Co. over its earplugs have asked a federal judge to dismiss the bankruptcy filing of a 3M subsidiary that would shield the industrial conglomerate from court trials.
Wall Street Journal
December 22, 2022
U.S. judge penalizes 3M, bars it from shifting liability in earplug litigation
Judge Rodgers barred 3M Co. from trying to avoid liability for injuries current and former U.S. military members sustained from its allegedly defective earplugs by shifting blame to a subsidiary.
Reuters
September 15, 2022
3M’s Failed Legal Move Leaves Firm Back With Judge It Criticized
3M blames judge for lawsuit morass that could cost it billions. Judge orders company to return to Florida court for mediation
Bloomberg
August 26, 2022
3M Can’t Use Bankruptcy to Halt Lawsuits Over Combat Earplugs, Judge Rules
3M Co. lost its fight to block jury trials in more than 230,000 lawsuits accusing it of harming US soldiers.
Bloomberg
July 18, 2022
3M Earplugs Fight Stems From Self-Made Legal Battle
A long-running legal battle over allegedly defective earplugs made by 3M Co. arose after the company initiated a separate dispute against a smaller competitor, court documents showed.
3M’s effort to protect its military earplug business eventually led 3M to halt deliveries of one model of earplugs, and resulted in years of litigation, millions of dollars in costs and potentially billions in liabilities for the Minnesota-based manufacturing giant, according to court documents and company communications disclosed during the litigation.
Wall Street Journal
June 26, 2022
3M Faces Potentially Billions in Liabilities Over $7.63 Earplugs
A tiny business for 3M Co.—making foam earplugs for the U.S. military—threatens to become a major liability for the manufacturing giant.
More than 100,000 U.S. military veterans have filed lawsuits against Minnesota-based 3M over hearing damage linked to what they claim are defects in the company’s military-grade earplugs. The company faces billions of dollars in potential costs from legal settlements or trials after soldiers alleged they returned from war with hearing damage due to the earplugs, which the government bought for around $7.63 a pair.
Wall Street Journal
May 20, 2022
3M loses final bellwether earplug trial with $77M verdict in favor of veteran
The final scheduled bellwether trial over 3M's allegedly defective Combat Arms earplugs ended Friday in favor of the plaintiff with a $77.5 million verdict, the largest sum awarded to date.
Bellwether trials are meant to set the stage for a possible settlement in large, complex cases. With no sign of a settlement to resolve the quarter-million claims still pending against the company, cases around the country are preparing to go to trial in waves of 500 at a time.
MN Star Tribune
May 7, 2022
Nearly 300,000 U.S. service members and veterans are suing 3M over a tiny piece of military gear they say didn't work
Joseph Sigmon was sitting in his high school French class in 2001 when he watched on TV as a hijacked plane slammed into New York’s World Trade Center. His immediate thought, Sigmon told NBC News, was to join the military. “I just knew I needed to do my part,” Sigmon recalled.
While Sigmon did his part, the company that supplied the Army with earplugs to protect his hearing did not, he says. That company is 3M, the St. Paul, Minnesota-based technology and manufacturing giant that supplied a version of Combat Arms earplugs to the U.S. military from 2008 to 2015. Sigmon, 37, has been diagnosed with tinnitus, a persistent ringing in his ears; he is one of about 290,000 U.S. military active-duty service members and veterans suing 3M over hearing problems they contend resulted from use of the company’s earplugs.
NBC News
Federal juries on Friday awarded a total of $58 million to two former service members who said combat earplugs that 3M Co sold to the military caused them to suffer hearing damage, the latest verdicts to result from hundreds of thousands of lawsuits over the product.
The verdict in Vilsmeyer's case was the second largest in the litigation and was made up entirely of compensatory damages. The 42-year-old Indiana resident served in the army from 1999 to 2020, first as a howitzer gunner and later as a Green Beret.
Reuters
March 26, 2022
3M owes $58 million to two veterans in latest combat earplug trials
January 28, 2022
Two Army Veterans Awarded $110 Million in 3M Earplug Lawsuit
A federal jury on Thursday awarded $110 million to two U.S. Army veterans who said they had hearing damage because of combat earplugs produced by the multinational manufacturer 3M.
It is the latest decision in a network of hundreds of thousands of lawsuits that accuse 3M of knowingly selling defective earplugs to the military. …The decision on Thursday represented the largest sum awarded to date in the earplug litigation against 3M.
New York Times
January 27, 2022
3M hit with $110 million verdict in latest U.S. military earplug trial
A federal jury on Thursday awarded $110 million to two U.S. Army veterans who said combat earplugs sold by 3M Co (MMM.N) to the military caused them to suffer hearing damage, the largest verdict yet to result from hundreds of thousands of lawsuits over the product.
Jurors in Pensacola, Florida, sided with U.S. Army veterans Ronald Sloan and William Wayman, who alleged that 3M's Combat Arms Earplugs Version 2's design was defective, lawyers for the plaintiffs' said.
Reuters.com
December 10, 2021
3M hit with $22.5 million verdict in latest U.S. military earplug trial
A federal jury on Friday awarded $22.5 million to a U.S. Army veteran who alleged that combat earplugs sold by 3M Co caused him to suffer hearing loss and tinnitus, the biggest verdict yet in massive litigation over the product.
Jurors in Pensacola, Florida, sided with former U.S. Army soldier Theodore Finley in the latest trial to result from more than 272,000 lawsuits by servicemembers and veterans who say defective earplugs made by 3M caused their hearing damage.
Reuters.com
November 15, 2021
Jury awards record $13 million in latest 3M earplug bellwether
A jury in Tallahassee, Florida federal court on Monday awarded $13 million to a U.S. Army sergeant who said he suffered hearing damage as a result of using military-issue earplugs made by 3M Co.
The verdict for Guillermo Camarillorazo, including about $800,000 in compensatory damages and $12.25 million in punitive damages, came in the seventh bellwether trial in a massive multidistrict litigation over the Combat Arms Earplugs version 2 (CAEv2), and was the largest recovery yet for a single plaintiff.
Reuters.com
October 1, 2021
3M hit with $8.2 million verdict in fourth military earplug trial
A federal jury on Friday awarded a U.S. Army veteran $8.2 million after finding that combat earplugs sold by 3M Co caused him to suffer hearing loss and tinnitus, the biggest verdict yet against the company in mass tort litigation over the product.
Jurors in Pensacola, Florida sided with former U.S. Army soldier Brandon Adkins after finding the earplugs had a design defect and that 3M failed to provide adequate safety warnings. His lawsuit was the fourth to go to trial of more than 259,000 cases pending in the largest multidistrict litigation ever.
Reuters.com
June 19, 2021
3M loses third trial in huge military earplug mass tort
A federal jury on Friday found that 3M Co failed to provide adequate safety warnings for its combat earplugs and that a U.S. Army veteran who said he developed tinnitus after using them sustained $1.7 million in damages, the second such verdict against the company. The ultimate amount that 3M would have pay to Lloyd Baker will be smaller, as the jury in Pensacola, Florida, found the company only 62% liable, according to a spokesperson for the plaintiffs' lawyers in the federal mass tort.
Reuters.com
April 30, 2021
3M hit with $6 mln punitive damages by U.S. jury in first combat earplug trial
3M Co (MMM.N) was found liable on Friday for hearing damage suffered by three U.S. military veterans who accused the company of covering up design defects in its earplugs, a blow to 3M which faces more than 200,000 similar claims.
The jury awarded each of the plaintiffs $2.1 million in punitive damages and a total of $830,500 in compensatory damages for their medical expenses, lost earnings and pain and suffering.
Reuters.com
December 28, 2020
High-stakes Florida cases to watch in 2021
Litigators will need to keep their eyes on several cases involving the state of Florida moving into the year 2021. Among these cases is the 3M Combat Arms Earplug products liability multidistrict litigation, which now has the most total actions, surpassing asbestos products liability litigation in the last couple of months.
The litigation involving 3M’s earplugs began with a dispute under the False Claims Act against the company, Moldex-Metric Inc. and the United States.
Law.com
December 12, 2020
Hundreds of SC veterans join lawsuit claiming 3M earplugs led to hearing damage
In the summer of 2018, Sherri Lydon, the then-U.S. attorney for South Carolina, announced the 3M Co. agreed to a $9 million settlement with the military following allegations the company supplied defective earplugs to men and women fighting and stationed overseas.
Since the 1990s, the St. Paul, Minnesota-based industrial supply company had provided thousands of its signature Combat Arms earplugs to service members.
Post and Courier
September 19, 2020
3M mired in one of the largest consumer mass torts ever over military earplugs
When 3M bought Aearo Technologies in 2008 it became a giant in the military earplug market. Aearo’s Combat Arms earplug was standard issue for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A dozen years later, 3M is mired in one of the largest U.S. mass torts ever over the earplugs. More than 200,000 people — mostly veterans and active duty soldiers — say that Combat Arms earplugs were knowingly defective, imperceptibly loosening and leaking in noise.
Star Tribune
July 27, 2020
Judge rules against key 3M defense in earplug lawsuit
A federal judge in Florida has harpooned a key legal defense that 3M planned to use against thousands of lawsuits accusing the company of knowingly making defective earplugs used by U.S. soldiers. Maplewood-based 3M has denied the allegations and invoked the "government contractor defense," which shields contractors from tort liability for defects in products designed and developed for the federal government.
Star Tribune
July 27, 2020
3M loses bid to dodge thousands of lawsuits over military earplugs
A federal judge has rejected 3M Co’s bid to dismiss thousands of lawsuits by servicemembers and veterans alleging it sold defective earplugs to the military.
U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday was not persuaded by the company’s claims that the alleged defect was based on a design mandated by the U.S. Army. Casey ruled that no reasonable jury could conclude that the Army made the company do anything or dictated precise specifications for the earplugs’ design.
Reuters
July 9, 2020
3M: Monopoly, Misrepresentation, and Malpractice
By the time Berger and his bosses’ obfuscation was discovered in 2015, Aearo and its parent company 3M had supplied millions of earplugs to nearly all troops who served between 2006 and 2015. Each pair of earplugs was faulty, due to a mechanical flaw discovered in 2000 by Berger and another lab scientist, Ronald Kieper, and subsequently hidden. Now, more than 160,000 veterans, current service members, and civilians are suing 3M for hearing loss, in one of the largest litigations of its kind in U.S. history.
American Prospect
May 20, 2020
3M billed government $7.63 for 85-cent earplugs. It now has $1 billion COVID contract
The company that has been awarded the largest single COVID-19 federal contract once boasted it charged the Defense Department $7.63 for earplugs that cost 85 cents a pair to produce. That company, 3M, was awarded a $1 billion contract on April 15 for “medical and surgical instruments, equipment and supplies,” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
McClatchy DC
May 1, 2020
Veterans, service members file lawsuit against 3M for distributing faulty earplugs
A federal judge in Pensacola unsealed hundreds of pages of documents from a class-action lawsuit involving veterans and service members against 3M. 3M is accused of knowingly manufacturing and distributing faulty earplugs to the military.
ABC Pensacola
April 29, 2020
U.S. soldiers don't deserve to know about potential issues with safety gear, 3M officials say
Newly unsealed documents in a collection of federal lawsuits against the manufacturing giant 3M show that the company joked about earning lucrative margins from the Defense Department and dismissed concerns about transparency over a potentially defective product.
Newsweek
April 24, 2020
3M Officials Say Troops Didn’t Need to Know Proper Use of Plugs
U.S. combat troops were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan with protective earplugs that they may not have known how to fit properly, and some employees of manufacturer 3M Co. didn’t believe soldiers needed to be told how to adjust the devices, according to unsealed depositions by company officials in a mass tort lawsuit.
Bloomberg
April 29, 2020
Judge unseals hundreds of pages of documents in veterans’ lawsuit against 3M over earplugs
Hundreds of pages of court documents were unsealed last week in a class action lawsuit against 3M regarding allegedly faulty earplugs it sold the military for use by service members in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The documents made public on April 20 by a judge in Pensacola, Fla., include emails, depositions, memos and receipts related to the Defense Department's mass purchase of earplugs.
Stars & Stripes
March 30, 2020
Maker of masks for health care workers accused of making defective earplugs for military
3M, the maker of tens of millions of respirator masks to be purchased by the U.S. government for health care workers battling the novel coronavirus, was accused several years ago of knowingly selling defective earplugs to the military in a federal lawsuit settled with the U.S. Justice Department. The St. Paul, Minnesota-headquartered company denies any wrongdoing and maintains the earplugs were not defective.
ABC News
February 6, 2020
Vets Tormented by Hearing Loss Face 3M in Earplug Mass Lawsuit
Guy Storm Litzler tries to avoid quiet, dark rooms. The incessant ringing in his ears takes over in the dead of night, so the retired Army sniper and his partner have agreed to sleep with the TV on.
At age 35, he has to wear hearing and noise-canceling aids. He has so much difficulty picking up female voices that his partner’s 6-year-old daughter keeps repeating herself and asks, “Why doesn’t Daddy listen?”
Bloomberg
March 12, 2019
Veterans claim defective 3M earplugs caused hearing loss, ringing in ears: "It is torture"
Hundreds of military veterans are expected to file lawsuits against the manufacturing company 3M, claiming it knowingly sold defective earplugs. These complaints come after the Justice Department settled a lawsuit with the company in July over allegations the company defrauded the government by selling earplugs with "dangerous design defects" to the military for "more than a decade."
CBS News
December 4, 2019
Veterans and Hearing Loss
One of the most dangerous places in the world is the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. But the hazards involve more than tons of live ordnance, dodging spinning propellers, and avoiding rivers of flame from fighter jet afterburners. It is also the loudest environment in which I ever worked as a Navy technician during the Cold War.
Scott Hogenson
American Thinker
November 4, 2019
Service members file lawsuit, saying ‘3M combat arms’ earplugs don’t work, causing hearing loss
Lawsuits are being filed across the country aimed at a product issued to thousands of members of the military. Earplugs are a basic item issued to service members who are sometimes in very loud environments.
Bill Riales
KETK (FOX 51)