Judge M. Casey Rodgers, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida.

In the first substantive decision to come out of the multidistrict litigation involving allegedly defective earplugs, a federal judge has refused to toss thousands of lawsuits brought by U.S. service members against 3M Corp.

U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers of the Northern District of Florida found that 3M could not claim it was operating under a duty to the federal government because it did not actually have a contract with the U.S. military, which was only a purchaser of the equipment.

The military was not directly involved in the design of the combat arms earplugs, called CAEv2, the judge said.

Friday's ruling, addressing summary judgment motions by both sides, struck down a government contractor defense raised by 3M and its predecessor, and allows design defect and failure to warn claims to go forward in more than 7,800 lawsuits.

"Defendants have identified no authority — none  — in which a defendant having no design obligation to the federal government nonetheless enjoyed the benefit of the government's sovereign immunity pursuant to Boyle," she wrote, referring to the U.S .Supreme Court's 1988 decision in Boyle v. United Technologies Corp.

In a statement, lead plaintiffs attorneys praised the ruling.

"We are pleased the Court rejected 3M's attempt to blame our nation's military for its defective earplugs that have permanently damaged the hearing of hundreds of thousands of service members," wrote Bryan Aylstock of Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz; Shelley Hutson of Houston's Clark, Love & Hutson; and Chris Seeger of New York's Seeger Weiss.

"3M's own internal emails and testimony show how the company was aware its earplugs were defective, failed to inform the military, and then joked about how they profited from this deception. We look forward to trial so that veterans can finally hold 3M accountable for the permanent, life-altering hearing damage they suffered due to the company's negligence and callous disregard for our troops' safety."

3M downplayed the significance of the ruling, which was "part of this litigation's preliminary proceedings."

"We are reviewing our options with respect to the court's decision, continuing to take discovery and look forward to proving our case at trial," the company said in a statement. "We remain confident the evidence will show that the CAEv2 product, which was developed in response to the U.S. military's request and based on its own specifications and testing, was not defective and did not cause injuries."

The 3M earplug lawsuits are among the largest multidistrict litigation proceedings in U.S. courts. The lawsuits allege 3M's dual-ended earplugs, used in the U.S. military for both training and combat, had a defective design that caused service members to suffer from hearing loss and ringing in the ears, called tinnitus.

3M was the exclusive supplier of earplugs to the U.S. military from 2003 to 2012. The cases allege that Aearo Technologies, the original manufacturer, which 3M purchased in 2007 for $1.2 billion, knew the earplugs had a design defect that caused them to loosen, but came up with a quick fix that would help it obtain U.S. government work. Further, the suits allege, 3M failed to warn the U.S. military or its service members of the defect.

More than 800,000 former service members now suffer from hearing damage, according to the lawsuits. 3M, which discontinued the earplugs in 2015, agreed to pay $9.1 million last year to settle similar allegations by the U.S. Department of Justice, which had intervened in a 2016 whistleblower suit brought by a 3M competitor.

Last year, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation sent the lawsuits to Rodgers, who has scheduled bellwether trials, the first of which is set for April 5 of next year.

In her order, Rodgers relied heavily on Boyle, which found defendants operating under procurement contracts with the government could be immune from suit under a three-part test.

But Aearo did not even have a procurement contract with the Army at the time it designed, then redesigned, the earplugs.

"In short, shielding a private company from civil liability in such circumstances would stretch Boyle well beyond its reasonably conceivable scope, and the court declines to do so here," she wrote.

3M also failed the first prong of the Boyle test, Rodgers concluded. The government did not approve "reasonably precise specifications" for the earplugs, despite 3M's argument that Aearo changed the design based on concerns Army officials had about some features, she wrote.

The argument that "meaningful government approval occurred here stumbles right out of the gate," Rodgers wrote.

"Instead, the undisputed material facts establish that those discretionary design decisions, which are the basis for the design defect claims in this litigation, were made by Aearo alone," she wrote.

The changes prompted internal concerns at 3M about the earplugs becoming loose — a fact left undisclosed until the first litigation emerged over the product.

Failing to warn about the alleged defect also is not subject to the government contractor defense under Dorse v. Eagle-Picher Industries Inc., a 1990 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Rodgers wrote.

"There is no evidence — none — that the Army prohibited Aearo from warning of alleged dangers inherent in the use of the CAEv2," she wrote.