Millions of military veterans are planning to file a lawsuit against 3M, the popular earphone manufacturing company.

They claim that the company sold defective earplugs knowingly, and it posed huge harm to the users. These complaints came to notice right after Justice Department settled one lawsuit in the month of July.

It was for the allegations that the company did some fraud with the government by selling earplugs that had dangerous design defects.

As per the lawsuit, the dual ended Combat Arms Earplugs were found defective, and they failed to provide protection to the men and women in the U.S military.

They were not able to block the hazardous noise at the time of training as well as on the battlefield.

Few servicemen used these defected earplugs from the year 2003 to 2015, and they suffered tinnitus or hearing loss; all such sufferers are eligible to file the lawsuit against the company to avail compensation.

In the year 2016, Moldex-Metric Inc. company that is popular for making hearing and respiratory protection aids filed one lawsuit against 3M, the manufacturer of popular dual ended Combat Arms Earplugs.

This lawsuit was filed as per the whistleblower provisions provided under the False Claims Act.

Note that, this act allows various private parties to sue defendants on behalf of the government for their false claims to the government funds; it allows them to share the settlements as well.

As per recent news, 3M has not admitted any liability to this issue; however, they agreed to pay the settlement amount of $9.1 million for the allegations.

The earplugs were originally designed by Aearo Technologies, and they obtained the exclusive contract to design dual sided Combat Arms earplugs for the military in the year 2003.

Later in the year 2008, 3M purchased the company, and the military contract to design earplugs was also transferred to them.

As per the Department of Veteran Affairs in the U.S., the major reasons behind service-related disability in military personnel is hearing loss or tinnitus.

Military use to buy earplugs from 3M to provide protection from hazardous noise to the soldiers.

The soldiers used to insert the olive side of these dual-ended earplugs into their ear to ensure protection against heavy sound.

When they insert the yellow side of these specially designed earplugs, it helped them to stay safe against explosions, but they could listen to the spoken commands as well as approaching enemies.

As per Moldex lawsuit, these earplugs were designed with some standard issues but still sold to the military branches from the year 2003 to 2015.

As per the lawsuit, the dual ended Combat Arms earplugs designed by 3M company caused tinnitus and hearing loss issue to millions of soldiers in the US military.

Tinnitus and Hearing Loss related injury claims:

Soldiers that used Combat Arms earplugs for protection from hazardous noise actually suffered huge trouble due to hearing damage.

Experts reveal that hearing loss is a major issue for the Department of Defence in the United States because it has a direct relation to the medical readiness, operational effectiveness, and quality of life of the military professionals.

All military branches execute a routine heating test on its service team, and the obtained results are kept into the records.

Now, all those records will be useful to file the lawsuit against 3M for the hearing loss issue.

As per the statement was given by the Department of Defence in the United States, the main symptoms of hearing loss observed in sufferers include:

·       Some servicemen report a feeling of ear fullness whenever they leave a noisy area like a concert venue.

·       Unnecessary ringing or buzzing sound in the ears.

·       Difficulty in understanding the conversations made by other people around.

·       Difficulty to hear someone who is talking from the estimated distance of around 3 feet.

Note that, Attorney says that veterans who are currently receiving VA disability compensation for the tinnitus or hearing loss problem will keep on availing those benefits even if they file a lawsuit against 3M.

It is just because, as per government policy, the disability compensations are awarded as per disability ratings of an individual, and it works irrespective of the income level.

The personal injury settlements do not have any relation with the provided benefits.

Design defects in earplugs:

As per the lawsuits, the earplug stem is found to be too short for the soldiers; it means, the plug cannot be inserted deep inside the ear canal to ensure proper fit.

The plug stays loose on their ear; hence, cannot provide the desired level of protection from the hazardous sound produced at the time of training and on the war field.

The Modlex lawsuit also reveals that the original manufacturers of these earplugs, Aearo Technologies was already aware of this defect, even in the year 2000, before it received the contract to provide a supply of earplugs to the military professionals.

Andrew Cobos, in a recent interview, said that it is really sad to know that 3M sold these defective earplugs purposefully to the service members and it caused huge loss to the users.

Aearo lab technicians and scientists were already aware of loose earplugs, and when 3M purchased the company, they also joined the new team.

But the company didn’t take responsibility to convey the issue to the military department and also failed to execute any corrective step to address the problem.

As a result, this fraud cased lifelong injuries and hearing loss to the service professionals, and this matter cannot be tolerated.

3M presented misleading test results:

The fraud was not limited to selling a defective product to the military teams; rather at the same time, the manufacturers mispresented the product effectiveness to the soldiers and military people.

In order to be eligible to sell the earplugs to the military servicemen, the company was bound to meet some specific Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) requirements.

But as per the lawsuit, the teams at Aearo and 3M misguided the military teams by presenting wrong results for NRR tests as well.

In general, the required NRR for olive-colored earplug end was somewhere between 25 to 40 dB whereas the yellow end was expected to work for the 0 to 25 dB range.

But the olive colored end during initial testing reached only up to 10.9 NRR, and the yellow one was limited to -2 NRR only. Hence, the results were really disappointing.

But Aearo retested the design by folding the yellow flange and presented false results to the military professionals for the sake of profit.

The same false results were placed on all marketing materials as well.