Alumna Fights 3M on Behalf of Veterans Who Suffered Auditory Injuries

STCL Houston alumna Shelley Hutson

’93 is plaintiff’s co-lead counsel of the largest-ever multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the United States — the 3M MDL that alleges 3M’s dual-ended Combat Arms earplugs were defective and caused thousands of military veterans and others to develop hearing loss and/or tinnitus (constant ringing in the ears).

“A woman has never been named colead counsel in a mass tort of this size,” said Hutson, a partner at Clark, Love and Hutson, PLLC. “Presiding Judge Casey Rodgers interviewed dozens of lawyers for this prestigious position, and I am honored to have been selected to help lead the charge. We began the litigation in April 2019 and have worked tirelessly to bring this litigation to an efficient and fair outcome.”

Mass torts are often confused with class actions; they are not the same. In mass torts, the cases are consolidated in front of a single judge to handle all pretrial matters, but each case must stand or fall on its own merits and each plaintiff has an individual case. The MDL court may try test cases, referred to as bellwethers, to aid the parties in negotiations.

The 3M products liability mass tort litigation, MDL No. 2885, involves more than 270,000 plaintiffs who are current and/or former members of the U.S. armed forces. All the veterans dutifully served, and many served in active combat abroad. Judge Rodgers used the bellwether process to attempt to find plaintiffs who were representative of all the plaintiffs involved in the MDL. Since that process began, 13 plaintiffs have prevailed in their bellwether jury trials. These occurred between April 2021 and May 2022, resulting in approximately $300 million in jury verdicts on behalf of servicemembers.

Hutson, both as co-lead of the MDL and as trial counsel, participated in three bellwether trials. Most recently, she was lead trial counsel for Ron Sloan. He served in both Iraq and Afghanistan between 1994 and 2015. In January 2022, a Pensacola federal jury awarded him $15 million in compensatory damages and $40 million in punitive damages against 3M. Sloan’s case was consolidated with the case of another veteran, William Wayman, represented by Dave Buchanan and Chris Seeger. The combined verdict for the two plaintiffs was $110 million.

“The verdicts in the bellwether cases, like Mr. Sloan’s and Mr. Wayman’s, speak volumes as to how juries feel about the liability facts against 3M,” Hutson said. “The juries consistently find 3M responsible for manufacturing a defective earplug and worse, hiding information they had in their possession as early as 2000 that the earplugs did not work. As a result, servicemembers like Mr. Sloan, who is only 47 years old, suffer from hearing deficits that impact their everyday lives and the lives of their families.”

After becoming dissatisfied with the many federal court juries that found 3M acted inappropriately, and in an attempt to deflect responsibility for their actions, 3M recently put several wholly owned subsidiaries into bankruptcy “in the hope that a bankruptcy court in Indiana would halt the litigation against 3M and prevent further fact finding by the American public,” Hutson explained.

One of the subsidiaries put into bankruptcy by 3M is Aearo Technologies, which originally manufactured the Combat Arms earplugs. 3M later acquired the company and its liabilities and upstreamed the companies into 3M itself.

“Many large companies like Johnson & Johnson and 3M have recently tried to use the bankruptcy courts to delay pending mass tort litigations,” Hutson said. “Regardless, the battle goes on.”

The remaining MDL cases will proceed after the 11th Circuit Courts of Appeal make the call on a critical liability decision. Hutson said, “We will continue to fight for what’s right on behalf of these wonderful servicemembers who I am humbled and honored to represent.”