By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A federal jury on Thursday awarded $110 million to two U.S. Army veterans who said combat earplugs sold by 3M Co to the military caused them to suffer hearing damage, the largest verdict yet to result from hundreds of thousands of lawsuits over the product.
Jurors in Pensacola, Florida, sided with U.S. Army veterans Ronald Sloan and William Wayman, who alleged that 3M's Combat Arms Earplugs Version 2's design was defective, lawyers for the plaintiffs' said.
The two men are among the nearly 300,000 service members and others who have sued 3M claiming they suffered hearing damage as a result of using the earplugs in what has become the largest federal mass tort litigation in U.S. history.
Sloan and Wayman were each awarded $15 million in compensatory damages and $40 million in punitive damages, the lawyers said. Each won more than the previously largest verdict in the litigation of $22.5 million.
"Juries continue to find that 3M's earplugs were defective and that they are responsible for causing irreparable hearing damage to those who served our country," plaintiffs' lawyers Bryan Aylstock, Shelley Hutson and Christopher Seeger said in a joint statement.
3M in a statement said it was disappointed and would appeal. It noted it won the last two trials involving the earplugs and said its conduct was consistent with its "long-time commitment to keeping our U.S. military safe."
Aearo Technologies, which 3M bought in 2008, developed the product. Plaintiffs allege the company hid design flaws, fudged test results and failed to provide instructions for the proper use of the earplugs.
The trial was the 11th so far to reach a verdict. Plaintiffs in six trials, including Thursday's, have won more than $160 million combined. Juries sided with 3M in the five others.
Five more trials are scheduled this year.