PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A Pike County lawyer is one of three nationwide being accused in a lawsuit of filing fraudulent and frivolous product liability cases against the 3M Company on behalf of coal miners afflicted by black lung.
Glenn Martin Hammond, of Pikeville; Michael B. Martin, of Houston, Texas; and Johnny Givens, of Ridgeland, Miss., were named in a RICO lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Pikeville.
The company claims the three attorneys worked together and 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.”
The complaint alleges the attorneys coached coal miners to lie about using respirators manufactured by 3M, commonly known as “dust masks.” Those masks were then blamed for failing and causing the miners to contract black lung in product liability lawsuits, even though the company claims “very few coal workers ever wore dust masks while working in the mines.”
Specifically, the complaint says the scheme “solicited and conducted ‘intake’ of potential claimants in a manner designed to encourage the filing of false claims; instructed and encouraged claimants to lie; knowingly filed and prosecuted fraudulent claims; submitted knowingly false discovery responses; and made false statements to courts, 3M and their own clients in furtherance of the scheme.”
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