3M’s Request for Combat Earplug Users to Pay Filing Fee Blasted

3M Co.'s request that service members be made to pay filing fees to proceed with their hearing-loss claims over combat earplugs is moot, a federal court in Florida said in a swift rebuke to the company.

“Filing fees and the statutory requirements for filing a case have never been ‘waived’ in this MDL,” Judge M. Casey Rodgers said Wednesday, referring to the consolidated multidistrict litigation.

The large administrative docket that 3M and its subsidiary Aearo Technologies LLC targeted in their motion is an organizational tool created partly for their own benefit, Rodgers said for the U.S. District Court for the ...