3M Combat Earplug Hearing-Loss Claims Return to Formal Mediation

Mediation between 3M Co. and service members over allegedly ineffective combat earplugs will resume after a break of three months, ordered by the court overseeing the hearing-loss claims.

Aspects of the earplug dispute pending in bankruptcy and appellate courts “present difficult issues and considerable risk for both sides, which warrant renewed exploration of a mutually agreeable resolution,” Judge M. Casey Rodgers said Tuesday. Rodgers oversees the 230,000-plaintiff multidistrict litigation pending in the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

The order came a day after the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit heard oral argument in ...