3M Loses Bid for Eighth Cir. Redo of Bair Hugger Suits’ Revival

3M Co. failed to convince the Eighth Circuit to revisit a decision that reinstated thousands of suits by joint-replacement patients who allege they developed infections from the company’s Bair Hugger warming system.

The Bair Hugger consists of a portable heater/blower connected by a flexible hose to a blanket. It warms patients by blowing heated air through the blanket onto their exposed skin.

The lawsuits were combined in multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, which dismissed them in 2019.

In August, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ...