Almquist v. 3M Company
- John Tunheim
- 0:21-cv-01319
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 7
In Almquist v. 3M Company, Judge Tunheim granted plaintiffs’ motions to remand their failure-to-warn cases to state court for lack of federal jurisdiction.
The eight groups of plaintiffs and 3M Company and Aearo Technologies LLC; the cases were returned to Minnesota state court, and the federal court did not decide the product-liability claims.
What happened
In Almquist v. 3M Company and seven related cases, plaintiffs alleged that 3M Company and Aearo Technologies LLC failed to provide adequate instructions and warnings for wearing their Combat Arms Earplugs, Version 2. Plaintiffs said they suffered hearing loss or tinnitus and filed product-liability cases in Minnesota state court.
3M removed the cases to federal court, arguing that federal jurisdiction existed based on several legal grounds, including the government-contractor defense, the combatant-activities exception, and the Constitution’s Article IV. Plaintiffs asked the court to send the cases back to state court because the federal court lacked authority to hear them.
Judge John R. Tunheim ruled that earlier decisions prevented 3M from relying on those jurisdictional grounds and granted all eight plaintiffs’ motions to remand to state court. The order did not decide whether 3M was liable for the alleged injuries.
The detailed version
- Almquist v. 3M Company · No. 0:21-cv-01319
- John Tunheim
- Sept. 20, 2021
Background
The opinion addresses eight actions brought by plaintiffs who wore Combat Arms Earplugs, Version 2, manufactured by 3M Company and Aearo Technologies LLC. The plaintiffs alleged that 3M failed to provide adequate instructions and warnings about how to properly fit and wear the earplugs. They alleged that, as a result, they suffered hearing loss and/or tinnitus. The plaintiffs filed product-liability claims in Minnesota state court.
3M removed the actions to federal court. Removal is the process of transferring a case from state court to federal court. 3M argued that the federal court had subject-matter jurisdiction—the legal authority to hear the cases—based on the government-contractor defense, the combatant-activities exception, and, for claims involving conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Japan, federal-question jurisdiction under Article IV of the Constitution. The plaintiffs moved to remand, meaning they asked the court to return the actions to state court.
Analysis
The court explained that a defendant may remove a case only if it could originally have been filed in federal court. The defendant bears the burden of establishing federal subject-matter jurisdiction, and doubts about jurisdiction must be resolved in favor of remand.
The court relied on its earlier rulings in related cases. In those cases, it had concluded that 3M failed to raise legally supportable government-contractor and combatant-activities defenses concerning the alleged tortious conduct. The court had also concluded that 3M failed to show that Article IV extended federal-question jurisdiction to claims involving tortious conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Japan.
Because 3M had already litigated those same jurisdictional grounds in earlier actions and the court had entered final judgments remanding those actions for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, the court applied collateral estoppel. Collateral estoppel is a rule that prevents a party from relitigating an issue that was already decided in an earlier proceeding. The court concluded that 3M was precluded from asserting those grounds for removal and that the federal court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over all the claims.
Disposition
The court granted the plaintiffs’ motions to remand to state court in all eight listed actions:
- Almquist et al., Civil No. 21-1319, Docket No. 10;
- McClean-Coyer et al., Civil No. 21-1317, Docket No. 7;
- Lestenkof et al., Civil No. 21-1313, Docket No. 7;
- Kauffman et al., Civil No. 21-1311, Docket No. 10;
- Flansburg, Civil No. 21-1310, Docket No. 7;
- Bouchard et al., Civil No. 21-1511, Docket No. 7;
- Ahrens et al., Civil No. 21-1546, Docket No. 9; and
- Almendinger et al., Civil No. 21-1665, Docket No. 7.
The order directed that judgment be entered accordingly. It addressed federal jurisdiction and remand, not the merits of the plaintiffs’ product-liability claims.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.