Oklahoma City Injury Lawyers Handling 3M Defective Earplug Claims

Representing Oklahoma veterans and civilians who sustained hearing damage because of defective earplugs

3M Dual-Ended Combat Arms™ earplugs were knowingly manufactured with a design defect for years. The company failed to disclose that defect, and a result, thousands of combat veterans may have sustained permanent hearing loss and injuries. If you were among them, you could be entitled to compensation. The Oklahoma City product liability lawyers of Cunningham & Mears are able and willing to represent you in a claim. Please contact us at your earliest convenience to learn how we can help.

What are 3M Dual-Ended Combat Arms™ earplugs?

These types of earplugs are known as “selective attenuation earplugs:” instead of blocking out all sound at certain decibel levels, the way regular ear plugs do, 3M’s earplugs were marketed as being able to block out varying levels of sound, depending on what the user needed. One side would allow a serviceperson to be able to hear speech; by flipping the earplug over, the serviceperson would able to block out speech and other sounds, giving him or her added protection.

(Photo credit: The Hearing Review)

The design defect

The Dual-Ended Combat Arms™ earplugs have a design defect: the stems were too short to fit properly into the ear, which means that, over time, the earplugs would loosen imperceptibly while in use. Because the seal was not tight, soldiers were exposed to higher decibels of noise than is safe, but were unaware of it.

The cover-up

As if this were not bad enough, Aearo/3M knew about this defect as early as 2000 – three years before it sold the product to the government. That was the year that the company retested its product, and found that the Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) of the closed end earplugs (the side that was supposed to block out the most amount of sound) was 10.9 decibels of sound, not the 22 NRR that the earplugs were supposed to provide.

They also found that when they tested the open end (the side that was supposed to allow users to hear speech), the plugs actually amplified sound. In response, Aearo/3M simply changed the test results and lied on the packaging. Then they continued to sell the product to the U.S. government, without disclosing any potential problems.

A competitor discovered the defect

The original creator of the Dual-Ended Combat Arms™ earplugs was Aearo Technologies. Aearo was, between 2003 and 2012, the exclusive supplier of selective attenuation earplugs to the U.S. military. (In 2008, 3M purchased Aearo and took over the contract.)

For years, 3M sold its Dual-Ended Combat Arms™ earplugs to the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), a support agency under the Department of Defense that handles the military’s supply chain. DLA purchased an untold number of these earplugs for combat personnel serving in the Army, though U.S. Marines also used the product.

Moldex-Metric is another company which manufacturers earplugs, and a competitor of 3M. In its attempts to create an earplug that could be sold to the government, it discovered a defect in the design of the earplugs. Upon this discovery, the Moldex-Metric filed a qui tam action under the False Claims Act, blowing the whistle on Aearo/3M’s continual defrauding of the U.S. government.

It was this qui tam action, and the resulting lawsuit, that led 3M to pay $9.1 million to resolve the claim – with the understanding that by doing so, it was not an admission of guilt by 3M.

Filing a lawsuit for injuries from defective earplugs

If you sustained injuries because of defective 3M earplugs, you can make a claim for damages. In order to be eligible, though, you must have:

• Served in the military between 2003 and 2015
• Been issued (or tasked with purchasing on your own) 3M Dual-Ended Combat Arms™ earplugs
• Worn these earplugs during your time in the service
• Developed:
  • Partial hearing loss in one or both ears
  • Total hearing loss in one or both ears
  • Tinnitus, a constant ringing, buzzing, hissing, chirping (or other) sound in one or both ears
  • Auditory processing disorder (APD), a condition which makes it difficult for you to understand and interpret speech.