3M Preview of Redo Quest in Earplug Trials Rebuffed by Court (1)

3M Co. shouldn’t have announced its intention to seek new trials in nine combat earplug cases ahead of time, a federal court in Florida said Tuesday.

The company told the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida Monday that delayed depositions of scientists who worked for a French-German defense research institute show a different narrative of the development of 3M Co.'s combat earplugs from the one presented at veterans’ hearing-loss trials.

Judgments in nine cases that 3M lost should be “extinguished,” the company said in a brief notifying the court of the recent testimony.

The test trials should ...