New York
3M agrees to pay $6B to settle earplug lawsuits
NEW YORK (AP) — Chemical and consumer product manufacturer 3M has agreed to pay $6 billion to settle numerous lawsuits from U.S. service members who say they experienced hearing loss or other serious injuries after using faulty earplugs made by the company.
The settlement, consisting of $5 billion in cash and $1 billion in 3M stock, will be made in payments that will run through 2029. The agreement announced by the Minnesota company on Tuesday marks a resolution to one of the largest mass torts in U.S. history.
Hundreds of thousands of veterans and current service members have reportedly sued 3M and Aearo Technologies, a company that 3M acquired in 2008, over their Combat Arms Earplug products. The service members alleged that a defective design allowed the products — which were intended to protect ears from close range firearms and other loud noises — to loosen slightly and allow hearing damage, according to Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis, & Overholtz PLLC, one of the law firms representing plaintiffs.
In an online summary about the Combat Arms Earplug litigation, the Florida-based law firm notes that 3M previously agreed to pay $9.1 million to settle a lawsuit on behalf of the government alleging the company knowingly supplied defective earplugs to the U.S. military. And since 2019, the firm added, 3M has lost 10 of 16 cases that have gone to trial — awarding millions of dollars to plaintiffs to date.
The Associated Press reached out to Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis, & Overholtz PLLC for comment on Tuesday’s agreement. In a statement to Bloomberg and other news outlets, attorney Bryan Aylstock called the settlement a historic agreement and a “tremendous victory for the thousands of men and women who bravely served our country and returned home with life-altering hearing injuries.”
In Tuesday’s announcement, 3M maintained that the agreement — which includes all claims in Florida’s multi-district litigation, coordinated state court action in Minnesota, and potential future claims — was not an admission of liability.
“The products at issue in this litigation are safe and effective when used properly,” the company wrote. “3M is prepared to continue to defend itself in the litigation if certain agreed terms of the settlement agreement are not fulfilled.”
3M has previously tried to reduce exposure to the earplug litigation through bankruptcy court, the Wall Street Journal reported. In 2022, Aearo filed for bankruptcy as a separate company, accepting responsibility for claims, but the filing was later dismissed in U.S. bankruptcy court.
Beyond the earplug litigation, 3M in June agreed to pay at least $10.3 billion to settle lawsuits over contamination of many U.S. public drinking water systems with potentially harmful compounds. The deal would compensate water providers for pollution with per- and polyfluorinated substances, also known as “forever chemicals.”
The agreement hasn’t been finalized yet. Last month, 22 attorneys general urged a federal court to reject the proposed settlement, saying it lets manufacturer 3M off too easily.
Colorado
Denver to pay $4.7M to settle claims it targeted protesters for violating curfew
DENVER (AP) — Denver will pay $4.7 million to settle a class action lawsuit that alleged that protesters were unjustly targeted for violating the city’s curfew during demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
City councilors unanimously agreed to the deal Monday without any debate.
The lawsuit alleged that the city directed police to only enforce the emergency 8 p.m. curfew against protesters, violating their free speech rights, even though the curfew applied to all people in any public place. It also said that over 300 protesters were taken to jail in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic rather than just being issued tickets for violating the curfew.
“The First Amendment does not allow police to clear the streets of protestors simply because they do not agree with their message,” the lead attorney for the protesters, Elizabeth Wang, said in a statement.
The city denied having an official policy of using the curfew against protesters but decided that continuing the lawsuit and going to a trial would be “burdensome and expensive,” according to the settlement.
Last year, a federal jury ordered Denver to pay a total of $14 million in damages to a group of 12 protesters who claimed police used excessive force against them, violating their constitutional rights, during the demonstrations.
The curfew deal is the latest in a series of settlements related to the 2020 protests over police killings of Floyd and other Black people.
In March, the city council approved a total of $1.6 million in settlements to settle lawsuits brought by seven protesters who were injured, The Denver Post reported.
Kansas
College reaches settlement in lawsuit alleging discrimination
HIGHLAND, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas community college that was accused of trying to reduce the number of Black student-athletes has agreed to a settlement, the U.S. Justice Department announced Monday.
The department said in a news release that the agreement requires Highland Community College to make its disciplinary proceedings fairer, to provide more training and to improve its procedures for responding to student complaints.
“Our student body is the most important part of the Highland Community College experience,” said college president, Deborah Fox, who was named personally in one of the lawsuits filed over the allegations. She added in a statement that “there is always room for improvement.”
The agreement resolves the department’s investigation into complaints that Black students were targeted for searches and disciplined more severely than their white peers, resulting in their unfair removal from campus housing or even expulsion, the department said in the release.
“No college student should have their educational experience marred or disrupted by discrimination based on their race,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Former coaches and athletes described horrific treatment in a pair of lawsuits.
The coaches’ lawsuit, which was settled this year, alleged that the school intimidated Black student-athletes into leaving and told coaches not to recruit African Americans.
The American Civil Liberties Union alleged in another lawsuit, which also was settled, that Highland expelled Black students for minor or bogus infractions and subjected them to arbitrary searches, surveillance and harassment on campus.
Highland has about 3,200 students and is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City, Missouri. Fewer than 6% of the students are African American, but half or more of the student-athletes, until recently, were Black and came from out of state, one of the lawsuits noted.
Fox, who became the school’s president in March 2019, found herself in the middle of the controversy last year when The Kansas City Star disclosed that she had compared a Black football player to Hitler, whom she called “a great leader.”
Fox made the remarks during a meeting about the alleged harassment of Black student-athletes, during which she questioned a Black football player’s leadership skills and his influence on other Black teammates.
In an email to KCUR, Fox said she was trying to describe “negative leadership” and the short audio clip was taken from a long conversation. She said she had apologized to the students, faculty and college “for my poor choice of words.”
Maine
Parents of teen who died on school-sponsored hiking trip sue in federal court
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The parents of a 17-year-old Maine boy who died on a school-sponsored hiking and camping trip are suing the school district and two staff members.
The lawsuit contends Michael Strecker had limited access to water while hiking and that his pleas to turn back were ignored before he vomited and eventually lost consciousness in New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest in 2021. The lawsuit contends Strecker died from a heat stroke and that the defendants were negligent.
The seniors from Lake Region High School were on a hike on South Baldface Mountain in September of 2021.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Portland by Strecker’s parents — Amy Tait of Casco, Maine, and Christopher Strecker of Chester, Vermont — alleges that students and staff weren’t properly trained or equipped for the trip, that Strecker’s requests to turn back were ignored and that his access to water was restricted.
Named in the lawsuit are Maine School Administrative District 61; Superintendent Alan Smith; and humanities teacher Jessica Daggett, who was a chaperone. They didn’t respond to an email seeking comment on Monday.
Wyoming
Judge dismisses lawsuit to block a transgender woman from joining sorority
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A judge has dismissed a lawsuit contesting a transgender woman’s admission into a sorority at the University of Wyoming, ruling that he could not override how the private, voluntary organization defined a woman and order that she not belong.
In the lawsuit, six members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority chapter challenged Artemis Langford’s admission by casting doubt on whether sorority rules allowed a transgender woman. Wyoming U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson, in his ruling, found that sorority bylaws don’t define who’s a woman.
The case at Wyoming’s only four-year public university drew widespread attention as transgender people fight for more acceptance in schools, athletics, workplaces and elsewhere, while others push back.
A federal court cannot interfere with the sorority chapter’s freedom of association by ruling against its vote to induct the transgender woman last year, Johnson ruled Friday.
With no definition of a woman in sorority bylaws, Johnson ruled that he could not impose the six sisters’ definition of a woman in place of the sorority’s more expansive definition provided in court.
“With its inquiry beginning and ending there, the court will not define a ‘woman’ today,” Johnson wrote.
Langford’s attorney, Rachel Berkness, welcomed the ruling.
“The allegations against Ms. Langford should never have made it into a legal filing. They are nothing more than cruel rumors that mirror exactly the type of rumors used to vilify and dehumanize members of the LGBTQIA+ community for generations. And they are baseless,” Berkness said in an email.
The sorority sisters who sued said Langford’s presence in their sorority house made them uncomfortable. But while the lawsuit portrayed Langford as a “sexual predator,” claims about her behavior turned out to be a “nothing more than a drunken rumor,” Berkness said.
An attorney for the sorority sisters, Cassie Craven, said by email they disagreed with the ruling and the fundamental issue — the definition of a woman — remains undecided.
