3M Gets Miners’ Lawsuit Over Respirators Sent to Federal Court

3M can defend two lawsuits over allegedly faulty respirators in federal court, after the Sixth Circuit ruled the multi-plaintiff suits qualify as mass actions.

After developing a lung disease, Brian Adams and Charles Mounts, two coal miners in Kentucky, sued 3M Company in state court along with other manufacturers and suppliers for allegedly creating and selling defective respirators. 3M removed the multi-plaintiff cases to a district court, which remanded the cases saying “commonality is woefully thin across the rosters of plaintiffs.”

• The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the remand of these cases to Kentucky state courts ...