Earplugs are as much a part of a service member’s protective gear as a helmet or flak jacket, given noise that can reach 150 decibels. What happens if they don't work?
Joseph Sigmon was sitting in his high school French class in 2001 when he watched on TV as a hijacked plane slammed into New York’s World Trade Center. His immediate thought, Sigmon told NBC News, was to join the military. “I just knew I needed to do my part,” Sigmon recalled.
The service members who won their cases against 3M in court have been awarded $220 million, including punitive damages. 3M has not paid these awards, as it is appealing the verdicts and asking the court to address what it calls “legal and evidentiary errors” presented at the trials.The service member lawsuits followed a3M struck with the Justice Department, which alleged the company knowingly supplied the U.S. military with defective earplugs that were too short to fit all users properly.
Hearing problems — including the tinnitus Sigmon experiences — are the most pervasive service-connected disabilities among U.S. veterans, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, given the noise associated with combat, training and other aspects of service jobs. Joseph Sigmon did two tours of duty as an artillery man in Iraq and Afghanistan and was decorated for his work training Afghan soldiers how to operate artillery.Mattson is not involved in the 3M litigation but said her experience shows how hearing loss and tinnitus can damage veterans’ lives.
Court filings show that a military contractor responsible for reviewing hearing protection devices for the government asked Aearo if it could shorten the earplug by about a quarter of an inch, which the company did. Among the more troubling exchanges to emerge from the litigation came in a 2020 deposition of Martin Salon, a former Aearo executive. In that deposition, Salon was asked if he thought it was OK “to sell a product and conceal information where it will have a negative effect on our soldiers?” He answered yes, court records show.Asked about Salon’s testimony, 3M’s Rucker disputed that information was concealed about the product.
“I remember me and my buddies talking about the earplugs aren’t working,” he said. “When you would fire your rifle, you could still feel a pinprick in your ear. You could feel the percussion. You could feel that sharp pain — the crack from it.”