3M Earplug Payout Would Still Just Be a Start: Brooke Sutherland

3M Co.’s much aggrieved shareholders have finally received some good news, but there are still too many legal headaches for comfort.

The industrial conglomerate has tentatively agreed to a more than $5.5 billion settlement to resolve claims that it knowingly sold defective earplugs that left US military service members with hearing loss and tinnitus, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the deal. There are around 300,000 claims pending, and plaintiffs had increasingly been winning bellwether trials with an average award of more than $20 million. 3M has said the earplugs were safe and effective and was appealing the verdicts. But the payouts to ...