3M Co. has racked up more than $450 million in defense costs as it struggles to fend off allegations defective earplugs it sold to the U.S. military harmed soldiers’ hearing, court filings show, Bloomberg News reported. The company — which has lost a slew of test trials over the earplugs — put a unit into chapter 11 in July in hopes of corralling the estimated $7 billion litigation over the product. A bankruptcy court filing last month detailed how 3M’s lawyers are seeking more than $19 million in fees and costs for work on the case just between July and October, bringing the running total to $366 million. The company also projected in July it would spend another $100 million on lawyers and legal costs defending the earplug cases over the rest of 2022, bringing its potential total bill to about $466 million, according to court filings. The fee tally is just the latest twist in the more than four-year litigation over 3M’s earplugs. More than a dozen juries concluded veterans’ hearing loss was tied to the defective products and ordered their maker to pay more than $300 million in damages. 3M also has won six defense verdicts in so-called test trials. A bankruptcy judge ruled the company couldn’t use its bankruptcy filing to stop the earplug trials. More than 200,000 veterans claim they were injured by the faulty earplugs. 3M put its Aearo subsidiary into chapter 11 in Indianapolis in hopes of facilitating quicker and cheaper settlements of the earplug suits. Other companies facing mass-tort litigation — including Johnston & Johnson and Purdue Pharma LP — are relying on similar bankruptcy filings to deal with their litigation woes in that forum rather than through state- and federal-court trials and settlements. But the judge overseeing a consolidation of the earplug cases in Florida last month ruled 3M can’t shift financial responsibility for the damage awards and other liabilities to its Aearo unit in bankruptcy. 3M has set up mediation efforts in both the Florida case and the Indiana bankruptcy action in hopes of coming up with out-of-court settlements.
