3M has urged a U.S. appeals court to bring an end to the lawsuits brought by service members with allegations that the combat earplugs were defective, resulting in hearing loss for the military service members.
3M has already paid $160 million as settlements in combined bellwether trials which includes a $110 million amount for the two U.S. Army veterans.
The company appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the verdict of the first trial loss of 3M, where the company paid $7.1 million to the three veterans last year.
The verdict was the first of the 11 trials from the largest federal multidistrict litigation in U.S. history. There are still more than 280,000 cases pending.
The company even argued that U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers in Pensacola, Florida, wrongly rejected the arguments and rewarded the verdicts in favor of the plaintiffs.
All the cases in the bellwether trials have similar allegations that 3M failed to alert the users about the defective design of the earplugs and used deceptive marketing techniques to promote sales.
The company claims that the reversible design of the earplugs provides complete sound blockage when used from one end and selective sound blockage when used reversibly. But, the plaintiffs alleged that the product completely failed to serve the purpose.
