Adams v. 3M Company

Background

The opinion addresses eight related cases captioned Adams, Barham, Bliven, Cook, Jacobs, Ackerman, Perry, and Keen against 3M Company and Aearo Technologies LLC. The plaintiffs filed product-liability actions in Minnesota state court. They alleged that they used Combat Arms Earplugs, Version 2, and that 3M failed to provide adequate instructions and warnings about properly fitting and wearing the earplugs. They alleged that they consequently suffered hearing loss and/or tinnitus.

3M removed the cases to federal court. Removal is the process by which a defendant transfers a case from state court to federal court. The plaintiffs moved to remand, meaning they asked the federal court to send the cases back to state court because the federal court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, or legal authority to hear them.

Analysis

A defendant seeking removal must establish that the case could originally have been filed in federal court. The court explained that a defendant cannot create federal jurisdiction simply by injecting a federal issue into an otherwise state-law claim, and that doubts about federal jurisdiction must be resolved in favor of remand.

3M relied on the government-contractor defense and the combatant-activities exception as grounds for removal in some cases. It also argued that federal-question jurisdiction existed for claims involving injuries allegedly arising in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Japan. The court stated that, in earlier related cases, it had determined that 3M failed to raise colorable versions of the government-contractor and combatant-activities defenses for the alleged conduct. The court had also determined that 3M failed to establish federal-question jurisdiction for claims arising in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because those grounds were identical to grounds already litigated and resolved through final remand judgments, the court held that 3M was precluded from asserting them again.

For the claim involving Japan, 3M relied on two cases and a bilateral agreement between Japan and the United States. The court found that one cited case concerned a different type of federal enclave jurisdiction. It found that the other concerned the reach of federal criminal laws and did not establish federal jurisdiction over a products-liability action. The court also determined that the bilateral agreement did not confer exclusive jurisdiction over the claims and that 3M had identified no congressional action extending federal jurisdiction to these failure-to-warn claims.

Disposition

The court concluded that 3M had not established federal jurisdiction over the Japan-related claim and was precluded from relying on the other asserted removal grounds. It therefore concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over all of the claims.

The order states that the plaintiffs’ motions to remand in all eight listed cases—Adams, Barham, Bliven, Cook, Jacobs, Ackerman, Perry, and Keen—are GRANTED. The order directs that judgment be entered accordingly. Chief Judge John R. Tunheim signed the order.