3M Lawsuit Lawyers Who Won the $6 Billion Settlement

The $6 billion 3M Combat Arms Earplug settlement was won by a court-appointed team of plaintiffs’ lawyers led by Bryan F. Aylstock of Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, with Shelley V. Hutson of Clark, Love & Hutson and Christopher A. Seeger of Seeger Weiss LLP serving as Co-Lead Counsel. They headed a leadership group of 53 attorneys from 42 firms who spent more than four years running 16 bellwether trials, defeating 3M’s bankruptcy maneuver, and negotiating the largest mass tort settlement in United States history.

The Court-Appointed Leadership Team

On April 3, 2019, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred the growing volume of earplug cases to Judge M. Casey Rodgers in the Northern District of Florida, consolidated as MDL No. 2885.¹ Judge Rodgers received 190 applications for leadership positions and appointed 53 lawyers from 42 firms to an initial one-year term.²

Aylstock, based in Pensacola, Florida, was named Plaintiffs’ Lead Counsel. Hutson, of Houston, and Seeger, of Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, were named Co-Lead Counsel.³ The structure below them included an Executive Committee, a Steering Committee co-chaired by David Buchanan and Elizabeth Burke, and specialized subcommittees for discovery, early vetting, and legal briefing. Hutson was also named chair of the Common Benefit Fund Committee, the body that would later oversee how attorneys’ fees from the settlement were allocated among the dozens of contributing firms.²

The Trial Lawyers Behind the Biggest Verdicts

Between April 2021 and May 2022, Judge Rodgers oversaw 16 bellwether trials. Plaintiffs won 10 of them, with combined verdicts approaching $300 million.⁴ 3M took defense verdicts in six.

Seeger Weiss delivered two of the headline results. Partner David Buchanan served as lead trial counsel for veteran William Wayman and co-led the bellwether that produced a $110 million verdict for Wayman and Roger Sloan in January 2022, including $40 million in punitive damages for each plaintiff. Partner Caleb Seeley helped secure a $50 million compensatory award for Army veteran Luke Vilsmeyer in March 2022.⁵⁶⁷

Chris Seeger was named Law.com’s “Litigator of the Week” in September 2023 for his role in negotiating the global settlement.⁸

How the Leadership Team Built Its Leverage

The bellwether numbers alone did not force 3M to the table. The plaintiffs’ team also had to strip away 3M’s most powerful defenses through pretrial motions. In July 2020, Judge Rodgers denied 3M’s motion for summary judgment on the government contractor defense, a theory that would have shielded 3M by arguing it built the earplugs to military specifications. She simultaneously granted the plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion on the same defense, effectively removing 3M’s strongest legal shield before any jury heard the case.⁹

In December 2022, the court went further, granting plaintiffs summary judgment establishing 3M’s full and independent liability for CAEv2-related injuries. Judge Rodgers also resolved numerous Daubert disputes, excluding some defense experts and limiting others.⁹ Each ruling narrowed what 3M could argue at trial, and each trial win tightened the pressure.

Defeating 3M’s Bankruptcy Maneuver

By mid-2022, with roughly 235,000 lawsuits pending and mounting trial losses, 3M tried to end the litigation on its own terms. In July 2022, its subsidiary Aearo Technologies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of Indiana, aiming to channel every earplug claim into a bankruptcy trust. 3M committed $1 billion to fund the trust and recorded a pre-tax charge of $1.2 billion.¹⁰

The plaintiffs’ lawyers fought the filing and won. After a five-day evidentiary hearing in April 2023, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffrey J. Graham dismissed the case on June 9, 2023, finding it was not filed in good faith. Aearo was financially healthy, had positive cash flow, and was backed by 3M’s balance sheet. Judge Graham wrote that letting “an otherwise financially healthy debtor with no impending solvency issues to remain in bankruptcy, much less one whose liability for most of its debts is supported by an even more financially healthy, Fortune 500 multinational conglomerate, exceeds the boundaries of the court’s limited jurisdiction,” citing the Third Circuit’s ruling in the Johnson & Johnson talc powder bankruptcy as precedent.¹¹

Negotiating the $6 Billion Settlement

With bankruptcy foreclosed and verdicts still coming, 3M reached a global settlement on August 29, 2023. The company agreed to pay up to $6 billion, with a pre-tax present value of $5.3 billion, structured over payments running from 2023 through 2029. 3M admitted no liability.¹²

The lawyers negotiated a settlement with multiple compensation tracks rather than a single formula. Early Payment Program and Wave Cases delivered faster payouts to qualifying claimants. The Deferred Payment Program uses a point-based calculation tied to hearing loss severity, whether one or both ears are affected, documented tinnitus, the claimant’s age, and the strength of the causal link to the earplugs. A separate Extraordinary Injury Fund was carved out for severe or life-altering injuries the standard formula would not fully capture.¹³

Participation was nearly universal. By March 2024, more than 249,000 of roughly 293,000 total claims had registered, and 3M projected a final participation level above 99.9%.¹² By late January 2026, more than $3.1 billion had been distributed to veterans and service members, all Early Payment and Wave Case claimants had been paid in full, and the federal MDL had been fully wound down.¹³

How the Lawyers Get Paid

In November 2024, Judge Rodgers approved a common benefit fee fund of roughly $540 million, about 9% of the total settlement value. The fund compensates approximately 364,000 attorney hours logged across 60 firms that worked on the bellwether trials, depositions, legal research, and settlement negotiations.¹⁴ The assessment runs on a two-tier system: attorneys who signed a participation agreement pay 9% into the fund, while attorneys whose clients benefited from the MDL work but who did not participate pay 15%.¹⁵

Retired federal judge David Herndon was appointed Special Master for fee allocation and said “a tremendous amount of review and analysis will be required” to divide the fund fairly among the contributing firms.¹⁴ Separately, Case Management Order No. 93 imposed a 60-day deadline for law firms to distribute each client’s share after receiving funds from the Qualified Settlement Fund.¹³

Misconduct the Leadership Had to Police

A litigation this large drew bad actors, and the leadership team and court had to push some of them out. On March 5, 2026, Judge Rodgers adopted a Special Master’s report finding that Heninger Garrison Davis had shown “reckless indifference” in verifying hundreds of claims submitted on behalf of Ugandan citizens. Those claims were invalidated and removed from the program. Recommended sanctions included $50,000 against the firm, $10,000 against partner Lew Garrison, $20,000 against partner Bill Bross, and $20,000 against former attorney Taylor Bartlett. The firm apologized but maintained the claims were not intentionally fraudulent.¹⁶

Judge Rodgers also cracked down on third-party litigation funders targeting claimants awaiting payouts. CMO No. 61, issued in August 2023, required lawyers to disclose all third-party funding agreements and barred claimants from taking new loans against their awards without prior court approval. The order cited concerns about “exorbitant fees and rates of interest” and the risk that such funding could interfere with a claimant’s ability to evaluate settlement options objectively.¹⁷

1
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida. 3M Products Liability Litigation MDL No. 2885
2
Verus LLC. Litigation Update: Leadership Decided for 3M Earplugs MDL
3
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida. MDL No. 2885 Contacts and Counsel
4
Ciresi Conlin LLP. $77.5 Million Jury Verdict in Latest 3M Earplugs Bellwether
5
Seeger Weiss LLP. Chris Seeger Announces Landmark $6 Billion 3M Earplug Litigation Settlement
6
Simmons and Fletcher. 3M Dual-Sided Earplug Litigation Update
7
MediaTBankry. Bellwether Trial Results in 3M Combat Arms Earplug Litigation
8
Seeger Weiss LLP. Chris Seeger Recognized as Litigator of the Week
9
GovInfo. In Re: 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation
10
3M Company. 3M Subsidiary Aearo Technologies Takes Action to Resolve Litigation
11
Brown Rudnick LLP. Firm Helps Win Dismissal of 3M Unit’s Bankruptcy Case
12
3M Company Investor Relations. Combat Arms Earplugs Settlement Moves to Final Resolution
13
Miller & Zois. 3M Combat Arms Earplug Lawsuit Attorneys
14
World Lawyers Forum. 3M Earplug Settlement $540M Fee Payout
15
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida. Common Benefit Order No. 3
16
Law.com. Heninger Garrison Davis Faces Sanctions for Filing Nearly 1K Fraudulent 3M Earplug Claims
17
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida. Case Management Order No. 61