{"id":1630101,"date":"2022-09-01T18:19:54","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T22:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1630101"},"modified":"2022-09-01T18:20:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T22:20:02","slug":"veterans-seeking-earplug-damages-sue-to-block-3m-healthcare-spinoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/veterans-seeking-earplug-damages-sue-to-block-3m-healthcare-spinoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans seeking earplug damages sue to block 3M healthcare spinoff"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fveterans-seeking-earplug-damages-sue-to-block-3m-healthcare-spinoff%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1630101&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>By Brendan Pierson<\/p>\n<p>(Reuters) \u2013     Two U.S. military veterans on Thursday sued 3M Co to block its planned spinoff of its healthcare business, which they called an illegal attempt to avoid compensating veterans for hearing damage caused by the company\u2019s military-issue earplugs.<\/p>\n<p>The veterans said in a lawsuit in federal court in Pensacola, Florida, that the spinoff was \u201clittle more than a formalism\u201d intended to \u201cwall off\u201d assets, violating a Florida law barring debtors from fraudulently transferring assets in order to shield them from creditors.<\/p>\n<p>The case is expected to go before U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers, who is already overseeing more than 220,000 lawsuits over the earplugs and has been harshly critical of the company\u2019s legal strategy.<\/p>\n<p>3M did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFortunately, the law does not allow companies to gift their assets to shareholders when doing so leaves them unable to pay their debts,\u201d Ashley Keller, a lawyer for the veterans, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday\u2019s lawsuit comes after a bankruptcy court in Indianapolis rejected 3M\u2019s bid to halt the cases before Rodgers and instead resolve the veterans\u2019 claims through the bankruptcy of 3M subsidiary Aearo Technologies LLC, the original maker of the Combat Arms Earplugs version 2.<\/p>\n<p>The veterans\u2019 lawsuits, which allege that the earplugs failed to protect their hearing in combat or training, make up the largest mass tort litigation in U.S. history.<\/p>\n<p>Aearo filed for bankruptcy in July, agreeing to indemnify 3M against earplug claims and setting aside $1 billion to settle them. Rodgers called the attempted maneuver \u201cnaked duplicity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The same day, 3M announced its plan to spin off its healthcare business, which accounted for about 25% of $35.35 billion in sales last year, into a new public company.<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs in Thursday\u2019s lawsuit said the company had already depleted its cash reserves through dividends and stock buybacks, and that the spinoff would leave it unable to meet its earplug liabilities, which they said were at least $82 billion but likely much more.<\/p>\n<p>The company has lost 10 of the 16 earplug cases that have gone to trial so far, with about $265 million being awarded in total to 13 plaintiffs. Rodgers on Tuesday ordered it to engage in mediation with plaintiffs in an effort to reach a broad settlement.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Chris Reese, Alexia Garamfalvi and Jonathan Oatis)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/?attachment_id=2744056\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI80281-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI80281-VIEWIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Brendan Pierson (Reuters) \u2013 Two U.S. military veterans on Thursday sued 3M Co to block its planned spinoff of its healthcare business, which they called an illegal attempt to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1630101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1630101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1630101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1630101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1630101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}