According to Docket Alarm analytics, top-ranked law firm Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan filed over 5,000 federal lawsuits in one week in August 2022. That’s more federal cases than any law firm filed in the entire year.
Many of the lawsuits are part of a long-running multidistrict litigation against 3M over Combat Arms earplugs it supplied to the United States military. In 2018, the Department of Justice announced a $9.1 million settlement with 3M to resolve False Claims Act allegations. According to the government, the company failed to disclose a defect that caused the earplugs to be much less effective for certain wearers.
After the settlement, a massive district litigation centered in the Northern District of Florida emerged, making that court the busiest in the country. 3M has faced over 300,000 product liability lawsuits in that court since 2020. 3M and related entities comprise many of the most-sued companies this year, as well as last.
Quinn Emmanuel is listed as plaintiff’s counsel in 5,441 complaints with the court from August 8 to August 15, 2022, on behalf of individual clients. That makes Quinn the top-filing law firm of the year, beating out the federal government by nearly a thousand.
Large multidistrict lawsuits often drive the top-filing attorneys and firms. Last year, Shook, Hardy & Bacon was the top law firm, but in an opposite role – it defended Johnson & Johnson in a long-running product liability case concerning talc-based baby powder, a case that remains ongoing.