3M Center in Saint Paul, Minn.
FRANKFORT, Ky. – A Kentucky injury lawyer found to have submitted a “false” affidavit to try to keep his client’s black-lung case against 3M alive has lost his appeal, as he fights racketeering claims brought by the company.
Attorney Glenn Hammond was also accused in an errant text message by a business partner of filing “frivolous” lawsuits, and a Kentucky judge has found Hammond’s timeline of when client Johnny Wilson realized he could have a claim alleging a defective 3M dust mask didn’t add up.
State law gives miners only one year to sue after they knew or should have known dust masks could be blamed for their lung disease. 3M said in Wilson’s case that Hammond filed a false affidavit to preserve the claim, and a Pike County judge agreed in a ruling affirmed by the state Court of Appeals last week.
3M has been sued by nearly 6,000 Kentucky miners over dust masks. When miners knew they could sue has become a key aspect of the litigation, as has testimony over whether the miners actually wore the masks.
“Against this background, 3M sought summary judgment on the statute of limitations in the Wilsons’ case,” 3M told the Court of Appeals.
“The saga that unfolded – a frivolous claim advancing to the cusp of trial until 3M proved an attorney’s affidavit filed to avoid summary judgment was ‘materially false’ – reads like a Grisham novel. It speaks volumes about this case and the litigation generally.”
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The key date is March 17, 2019 – one year before Hammond filed Wilson’s case along with 52 other miners’. If on that date or anytime after Wilson discovered dust masks could have contributed to his black lung, his lawsuit would have been timely filed.
Any time before March 17, 2019, and his claim missed the one-year statute of limitations. He’d used the respirator until 1998, but in 1993 he was diagnosed with black lung. Wilson says his doctor never actually told him though.
In 2012 after giving up work as a miner, a pulmonologist diagnosed him with an advanced form of the disease, so he applied for federal benefits, Social Security disability and Workers’ Compensation. He was represented by Hammond in this effort.
This is the first place 3M argued the statute began to run. Asked in a deposition if he understood in 2012 that his mask hadn’t stopped coal dust from entering his lungs, Wilson replied “Right,” but he never investigated whether he had a lawsuit on his hands.
May 2018 was 10 months before the statute of limitations needed to start based on when the lawsuit was filed. Wilson met with Hammond, and the two claim it was to discuss coverage denials by the Workers’ Comp insurer and not a lawsuit.
That denial, though, of the drug fluconazole hadn’t happened until May 2019, 3M discovered, insisting the true purpose was a lawsuit. The meeting’s file, court records show, included the note “Dust Mask.”
“The 2018 Wilson-Hammond meeting about an ‘injury claim,’ in other words, could not have concerned fluconazole or insurance benefits,” 3M wrote. Notes from the meeting stated “update his records > Vandy > UL – Jewish Hospital > PMC > Dr. Amisetty > Actually CT-Scans.”
But in May 2018, Wilson wasn’t a patient at UL-Jewish Hospital. He’d switch to its care in September 2018 – “Hammond could not have known to update records from a hospital that Wilson had not yet visited.” These notes came from a 2019 meeting, 3M suggested.
Hammond and Wilson’s story shifted to the 2018 meeting concerning a possible lung transplant at Duke Medical Center. But in 2017, Workers’ Comp denied an evaluation there because it was outside the insurance network, and Wilson had his evaluation at Vanderbilt on Feb. 1, 2018, 3M told the Court of Appeals.
“3M Company has conclusively shown that Hammond’s affidavit was materially false. The Court finds no genuine issue of material fact in this regard,” Pike County judge Howard Keith Hall wrote in 2023.
A letter from Hammond to Wilson’s doctor to produce medical records for an “injury claim” was sent Jan. 3, 2019. That was deemed to be when the pursuit of the lawsuit started and was two months outside the statute of limitations for the March 17, 2020, filing.
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Hammond denies 3M’s version and told the Court of Appeals Wilson reached out about a lawsuit in August 2019 after hearing a radio commercial. Earlier meetings concerned Workers’ Comp, and it should have been up to a jury to decide the issue of when the statute of limitations began to run, Hammond said.
Wilson testified about the radio ad and 3M doesn’t believe him, “therefore it is a disputed fact,” Hammond wrote. But his appeal only raised the issue of denial of an untimely fraud claim, the Court of Appeals wrote, and not the order dismissing Wilson’s personal injury claim.
Hammond is part of a trio of lawyers 3M has sued in federal court for racketeering. He, John Givens and Michael Martin reached a business agreement to pursue more than 850 claims against 3M filed over an 18-month period.
But an errant text message 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.”
"Yet Martin shortly thereafter filed an appearance as counsel against 3M in that very same frivolous case," 3M's complaint says.
"Defendants banded together with others... to form an unlawful enterprise to cheat 3M, exploit coal miners, and burden the courts with cases that should have never been filed in the first place."
Though he fought being deposed, 3M was eventually able to question Martin and obtained additional evidence to use in its RICO lawsuit. 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."
In Wilson’s case, 3M sought sanctions against the three lawyers, and Martin and Givens moved to stay all dust mask cases involving Hammond, 3M said. When Martin and Givens got their first look at Wilson’s file, the meeting in May 2018 had “Dust Mask” written on it.
Plus there was a contingent fee agreement in the file. This was documented 15 months before Wilson said he heard the radio ad for dust mask lawsuits.
Martin withdrew a motion to sanction 3M’s lawyers. Then he and Givens represented that Wilson had fired Hammond, who moved to disqualify them for not “properly representing the interests of their clients.”
The bickering continued, 3M says. Hammond accused Martin and Givens of refusing to turn over files and trying to poach clients from him.
Hammond has been twice reprimanded by the Kentucky Supreme Court, once private and once public. Martin was part of Texas' silicosis litigation mess two decades ago and was found by Judge Janis Jack to have waited too long to file a client's case and concealed it from the client for nine months.
The client alleged Martin suggested he lie about when he discovered his injury so the statute of limitations wouldn't apply. Ultimately the client sued Martin for legal malpractice and won $150,000.
The three await a ruling in federal court on their motions to dismiss 3M’s RICO lawsuit. Martin calls the case against him “an impermissible collateral attack on the dust mask litigation in Kentucky courts – and a transparent attempt to retaliate against attorneys who represent coal miners and their families who suffer from lung injuries related to coal dust exposure.”
