A Delaware state court judge said Monday that a Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. unit is not required to pay more than $372 million that 3M and subsidiary Aearo Technologies LLC incurred defending injury lawsuits related to the use of combat earplugs.
The judge in Aearo Technologies LLC et al. v. Ace American Insurance Co. et al., said 3M’s payment of defense costs did not count toward the self-insured retention limits in policies issued to Aearo by Hartford unit Twin City Fire Insurance Co.
The judge also said Aearo and 3M failed to show that insurers such as Twin City and Berkshire Hathaway unit General Star Indemnity Co. were obligated to pay defense costs because the companies did not first obtain the insurers’ consent.
General Star, however, failed to present sufficient evidence to the judge to show it was not obligated to pay some of the defense costs because such a determination must be made on a case-by-case basis.
Aearo and its subsidiaries manufactured Dual-Ended Combat Arms Earplugs Version 2 until 2015. Shortly thereafter, individuals started filing lawsuits alleging hearing-related injuries. In April 2019, a multidistrict litigation was created in federal court in St. Paul, Minnesota, to centralize 280,000 lawsuits. An additional 2,000 lawsuits were filed in Minnesota state court, court records show.
In August 2023, 3M and Aearo agreed to pay $6 billion to resolve the lawsuits.
3M and Aearo initially sued 13 insurers in June 2023, seeking recovery of defense costs for the lawsuits. 3M spent $372 million to defend against the suits, and Aearo and its subsidiaries spent $411,696.70. They later amended their suit to seek coverage for the settlement, court records show.
Aearo had multitiered general liability coverage from September 1998 until September 2008 through policies issued by a number of insurers. Although 3M purchased Aearo in 2008, it is not named as an insured on any of the policies.
Aearo, 3M, General Star and Twin City each filed motions for partial summary judgment on the recovery of defense costs.
Representatives for the parties did not respond to requests for comment.
