{"id":16517,"date":"2023-04-20T15:15:46","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T15:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/us-veterans-suing-3m\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T15:22:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T15:22:47","slug":"us-veterans-suing-3m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/us-veterans-suing-3m\/","title":{"rendered":"US veterans suing 3M over earplugs seek to stop unit’s ‘false alarm’ bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dietrich Knauth<\/p>\n

(Reuters) -U.S. veterans and members of the military on Wednesday urged a judge to dismiss 3M’s bid to use the bankruptcy of its subsidiary Aearo Technologies to shield itself from nearly 260,000 lawsuits over military-issue earplugs that former users allege were defective and damaged their hearing.<\/p>\n

3M and Aearo say the earplug litigation has spiraled out of control. But attorney Adam Silverstein, who represents veterans suing 3M over hearing loss, said at a court hearing in Indianapolis that filing for bankruptcy, like “pulling a fire alarm,” should be reserved for urgent threats.<\/p>\n

Aearo was not in need of emergency rescue, because it had filed for bankruptcy solely as “a strategic alternative to managing 3M’s litigation,” Silverstein said.<\/p>\n

“If the firemen determine something is a false alarm, they don’t wait around to see if a fire might start later or if there’s some other problem they can assist with,” he said. “They leave.”<\/p>\n

Aearo, which made the combat arms earplugs, filed for bankruptcy last July, with 3M pledging $1 billion to fund its liabilities stemming from the lawsuits that accuse both Aearo and 3M of misrepresenting the earplugs’ effectiveness, leading to hearing damage.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs have called that move a bid to escape the Florida federal court where the earplug lawsuits are consolidated in a so-called multidistrict litigation, following a series of unfavorable legal rulings and trial losses.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Aearo attorney Chad Husnick said U.S. law does not require the “house to be on fire” before a company files for bankruptcy. Aearo should be allowed to proactively resolve the growing problem of earplug lawsuits through a bankruptcy settlement, Husnick said.<\/p>\n

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffrey Graham will continue to hear evidence on Thursday before he makes a ruling on whether to dismiss the case.<\/p>\n

3M’s bankruptcy strategy, along with a similar effort by Johnson & Johnson, has attracted both criticism and support, sparking a debate about whether bankruptcy is an appropriate solution for financially healthy companies facing significant litigation. <\/p>\n

The case against 3M and Aearo is the largest-ever multidistrict litigation in U.S. history, with nearly 330,000 cases filed and approximately 260,000 pending cases, according to court statistics from March 16. <\/p>\n

3M has lost 10 of the 16 cases that have gone to trial so far, with about $265 million being awarded in total to 13 plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, David Gregorio and Richard Chang)<\/p>\n

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By Dietrich Knauth (Reuters) -U.S. veterans and members of the military on Wednesday urged a judge to dismiss 3M’s bid to use the bankruptcy of its subsidiary Aearo Technologies to shield itself from nearly 260,000 lawsuits over military-issue earplugs that former users allege were defective and damaged their hearing. 3M and Aearo say the earplug […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":16518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-16517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3I0RM-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16517"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16784,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16517\/revisions\/16784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}