Elected officials and the Department of Justice asked an appeals court to allow earplug liability claims to continue against 3M in a long running dispute that impacts nearly 300,000 related civil cases nationwide, despite the corporation’s bankruptcy proceedings.

“Allowing Aearo’s position to prevail here would fuel abuses that are already transforming a system designed to help ‘struggling businesses as a last resort’ to become the favorite of ‘massively wealthy corporations whose products caused harm,’” wrote attorney J. Carl Cecere from Cecere PC, on behalf of Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, and Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut—all members of the Senate Judiciary committee.