The first trial resulted in $7.1 million verdict for three plaintiffs in April, while the second ended in a victory for 3M in May. Such cases are used to help both sides gauge the range of damages and define settlement options. 3M denies the allegations.Īdkins' case, which was selected by the defense for trial, was the fourth so-called "bellwether" to go to trial. Plaintiffs allege the company hid design flaws, fudged test results and failed to provide instruction in the proper use of Combat Arms Earplugs Version 2, which were used by the Army from 2007 to 2013. "We plan to hold 3M fully accountable for the damage they have caused to those who served our nation," they said in a joint statement.ģM in a statement said it was disappointed by the verdict and remained "ready to defend ourselves against plaintiffs' allegations at all upcoming trials." The lead lawyers for the plaintiffs in the litigation – Bryan Aylstock of Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz Shelley Hutson of Clark, Love & Hutson and Christopher Seeger of Seeger Weiss – noted the case was 3M's third trial loss. His lawsuit was the fourth to go to trial of more than 259,000 cases pending in the largest multidistrict litigation ever. Army soldier Brandon Adkins after finding the earplugs had a design defect and that 3M failed to provide adequate safety warnings. Jurors in Pensacola, Florida sided with former 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. In a separate ruling, Rodgers on jurisdictional grounds dismissed a lawsuit by two veterans seeking to block 3M's planned spinoff of its healthcare business, which they called an illegal attempt to avoid compensating veterans.(Reuters) - A federal jury on Friday awarded a U.S. "We applaud Judge Rodger's order, which shuts the door on 3M's duplicitous, bad faith attempt to shift blame to Aearo defendants in service of its contrived bankruptcy maneuver," they said. The lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, Bryan Aylstock and Chris Seeger, in a joint statement welcomed the ruling, saying 3M had consistently represented itself as the sole defendant liable for any injuries caused by the earplugs. Rodgers said 3M was "masquerading as the hapless wrong party defendant and purposefully ambushing the other side with a wholly contrived strategic position," and she barred it from "shifting blame to the Aearo defendants".ģM in a statement said it would appeal, calling Rodgers' ruling an "incomplete and inaccurate depiction of our good faith efforts in this litigation." Instead, she said, 3M attempted nearly four years into the litigation to "rewrite the history of the CAEv2" by asserting for the first time, it is not independently responsible, as Aearo's purchaser, for any injuries.ģM has lost 10 of the 16 earplug cases that have gone to trial so far, with about $265 million being awarded in total to 13 plaintiffs. Rodgers said the bankruptcy judge's decision, which 3M is appealing, "should have ended the sophistry" and 3M's attempt to avoid liability. After Aearo filed for bankruptcy protection in Indiana in July, 3M sought to pause the cases against it.īut a bankruptcy judge in August declined to put the litigation against 3M on hold. That unit, Aearo Technologies, had developed the Combat Arms Earplugs Version 2 (CAEv2) earplugs for the U.S. Casey Rodgers, the Pensacola, Florida-based judge tasked with overseeing nearly 250,000 cases over the combat earplugs, said 3M deserved the "harshest penalty" for its "bad faith" attempts to transfer the liability to a bankrupt unit. military members sustained from its allegedly defective earplugs by shifting blame to a subsidiary. judge on Thursday barred 3M Co (MMM.N) from trying to avoid liability for injuries current and former U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |