3M Center in Saint Paul, Minn.
FRANKFORT, Ky. – Close to 50% of black-lung lawsuits brought by a group of lawyers accused of racketeering have been dismissed, a figure that 3M says points to a pattern of frivolous cases against it.
Out of a group of 446 suits filed by attorneys Glenn Hammond, Michael Martin and Johnny Givens, 199 are no longer active, the company told a Kentucky federal judge Aug. 27. The company has filed a RICO suit against the three of them for allegedly pursuing cases they knew lacked merit.
Only one has been tossed on the merits, while 171 were dismissed when lawyers opted against filing proof required by the court. Another 27 were voluntarily dismissed.
“In other words, 45% of the claims Defendants filed against 3M in the related proceedings were so patently frivolous they could not even withstand a threshold inquiry,” 3M’s lawyers wrote.
“The remaining 55% fare no better. 3M’s limited vetting, through court-ordered discovery, exposed threshold issues in the related proceedings—statute of limitations, product usage, product identification, and lack of injury—all of which correlate to the categories of fraudulent statements alleged in this RICO action.”
The lawsuits concern respirators made by the company that allegedly failed to protect coal miners from black lung. 3M says it has spent millions of dollars defending itself and cited an errant text message from one plaintiff lawyer who accused another of filing “frivolous” lawsuits.
Hammond, Givens and Martin reached a business agreement to pursue more than 850 claims against 3M filed over an 18-month period, but the text complicated the partnership. In 2023, Martin accidentally sent it to one of 3M’s outside lawyers in a Texas case, complaining that Hammond is “hurting our clients with real claims because so many are frivolous.”
In a deposition, Martin said the text showed he did "not agree with the filings by co-counsel Glenn Hammond" and did "not believe these filings by co-counsel, Glenn Hammond, rise to the level of injury needed to be a good claim."
Martin and Givens have represented that they fired Hammond, who moved to disqualify them for “not properly representing the interests of their clients.” Hammond has also accused Martin and Givens of refusing to turn over files and trying to poach clients from him.
There are issues in black-lung cases that are similar to asbestos litigation. Plaintiffs need to be able to identify the products they used in the past – sometimes decades ago – and there is a certain timeframe for when the suits must be filed.
In black-lung cases, that window is one year after they begin to suspect their illness was caused by an allegedly defective respirator. 3M says Martin, Givens and Hammond have crossed the line in preserving claims with “materially false” statements about when they met with clients about litigation.
3M has filed 105 motions for summary judgment in the remaining cases, with all but seven arguing the statute of limitations bars them. It says it also found “disturbing” examples while deposing the plaintiffs, like one man who hadn’t worked as a miner since 1970 but still sued over the respirator, which didn’t go to market until 1972.
“Certain plaintiffs admitted meeting with attorneys years before the related proceedings were filed—further confirming that these claims were long since time-barred,” 3M said, though the plaintiffs lawyers have also represented clients in Workers’ Compensation matters.
“Still other plaintiffs testified that they never wore a 3M mask—directly contradicting discovery responses in which counsel represented that plaintiffs swore they had.”
