Magistrate Judge Rejects Efforts to Obtain Protective Order in 3M Combat Earplugs MDL Docket

PENSACOLA, Fla. –– A magistrate judge weighed in on a dispute on whether a protected order was warranted in the 3M Combat Arms Earplug multidistrict litigation, concluding that he could not find sound legal or factual reasons to “arbitrarily limit” the opportunity to examine two witnesses “regarding the facts and opinions in Defendants’ new disclosures.”

In a Dec. 14 order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Gary R. Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida denied the emergency motion, opining that he was “confident” that the plaintiffs would be “prudent with their time and not prolong unnecessarily these …