Not too long ago I was talking to someone who had been in a similar situation to me – a person with hearing loss and tinnitus. She was able to get some insurance benefits for her hearing problems through her employer, but that didn’t help much. After about six months of being shopped around by different doctors and health insurers, she finally got accepted into a three-month program for people with hearing problems. While she was still on the program, she decided that she would file a 3m lawsuit against her former insurer. Here is what she told me.
She explained to me that she was feeling very frustrated and upset with her insurer and that it seemed like no matter what they did, nothing worked.
She said that she would have never put forth the money to buy her own hearing aids if she knew there were any such products out there that actually worked and could be helped with through a lawsuit. The fact that her insurance company tried to hide the fact that there were no new hearing problems with her like she thought there were only made her feel even more frustrated and she filed the lawsuit. So, how much does a 3m settlement per person work out to be in this situation? Let’s take a closer look.
The average payout amount of a 3m settlement to a person who files a lawsuit is close to five-thousand dollars.
Most of these people will receive a substantially larger amount of money because they are at an age where they would have received lower wages and fewer benefits. That said, the actual value of the settlement may be tied to future compensation amounts as well. It is possible that the bulk of the award goes to her as the court case proceeds, though this doesn’t happen very often. It’s also possible that she gets only half of the amount that the court awards her, meaning she would only receive approximately two-hundred and forty dollars per person for her defective earplugs.
What about those individuals that are not entitled to any form of financial assistance?
In many cases, affected service members are entitled to receive compensation just based on the severity of their hearing loss. For example, if a person has only mild hearing loss, then it may not make sense to pay them for replacement or repair earplugs. However, those that have much more severe hearing loss will likely be able to get additional compensation through a 3m earplug lawsuit.
These lawsuits are sometimes referred to as “mass tort” lawsuits, which is what they’re called in the United States.
In some cases, affected individuals can be eligible for financial aid from the United States government through the Federal Tort Claims Act. Those that qualify for this assistance should file a claim and then wait for the court date in order to be processed. While waiting for a court date, they should also file their own 3m earplug lawsuit against the manufacturer.
The damages awarded by the court in a mass tort case are quite substantial.
In fact, many individuals that have filed these lawsuits have received more than six-figure payouts. But there are limitations to the damages awarded in a mass tort case. If a manufacturer has failed to comply with safety standards required under the law, then they may be held liable for injuries caused by their products. However, since a majority of manufacturers are required to follow strict guidelines to ensure that their products perform as safely as possible, it is unlikely that more than few defective earplugs would be sold in the United States.
