2 vets to get $110M in 3M earplugs suit
A federal jury Thursday awarded $110 million to two U.S. Army veterans who said they had hearing damage because of combat earplugs produced by multinational manufacturer 3M.
It is the latest decision in a network of hundreds of thousands of lawsuits that accuse 3M of knowingly selling defective earplugs to the military. 3M has maintained that the since-discontinued product, which was marketed as Combat Arms earplugs, Version 2, was effective and safe to use.
The decision Thursday represented the largest sum awarded to date in the earplug litigation against 3M. The two veterans, Ronald Sloan and William Wayman, were each awarded $15 million in compensatory damages and $40 million in punitive damages by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.