3M on Friday won the latest trial in a legal war over its military earplugs, halting a losing streak of relatively large jury awards against the company.
A federal jury in Pensacola, Fla., ruled in favor of 3M in the case of Denise Kelley, a 36-year-old veteran from southern California who served 10 years in the U.S. Army. She claimed that defective 3M earplugs caused her hearing loss and tinnitus.
3M has now won six and lost eight of 14 bellwether trials over its Combat Arms CAEv2 earplugs, which for years were standard issue to the U.S. military. The trials are part of one of the largest U.S. mass torts ever.
"We are pleased another jury has sided with 3M," the Maplewood-based company said in a statement Friday. The litigation's "mixed record demonstrates the strength of 3M's case and the significant challenges plaintiffs face in proving their claims."
In a statement, attorneys for the plaintiffs said "eight juries have awarded more than $200 million in damages to U.S. service members, and 3M's defenses — whether in the courts, to investors or the public — are unconvincing and without merit."
Prior to December, cases lost by 3M led to jury awards ranging from $1.05 million to $13 million. Since then — aside from an $8 million award last month — juries have handed out four sums that averaged $45.5 million.
Over 280,000 military earplug claims are pending against 3M; about 42,000 of them are being readied for trial, the others sit on an administrative docket. The suits have been roped together in a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, case in U.S. District Court of northern Florida.
MDLs are used in the federal court system for complex product liability matters with many separate claims. They commonly feature bellwether trials, which set a tone for settling all claims. Two more earplug bellwether trials are scheduled through May.
If there's still no settlement after those trials, Casey Rodgers, a U.S. district judge in Florida, has ruled that active cases will be remanded back to the various federal courts from which they came. They would be tried in waves of 500 cases.
In a court filing Tuesday, 3M claimed that the administrative docket has swollen to such huge proportions because plaintiffs' attorneys have been permitted to file "unvetted claims at no cost."
The company asked the court to require that all plaintiffs on the administrative docket pay a $402 filing fee within 30 days.
Rodgers on Wednesday denied 3M's motion, saying it was moot. "Filing fees and the statutory requirements for filing a case have never been waived," she wrote.
In an order, she wrote that "it is hard to see what the defendants, in good faith, hoped to accomplish here. ... Though it might be a tough pill to swallow, the numbers [of cases] are what they are. Filing frivolous motions will not 'winnow' frivolous cases."
