Products Liability Law Daily Wrap Up, JURY VERDICTS—WEAPONS AND FIREARMS—N.D. Ga.: Sig Sauer denied new trial, remittitur in pistol’s accidental discharge case, (Feb 18, 2025)

By Pankhuri Bhatnagar, B.A. LL.B.

The pistol maker was not entitled to a new trial because it failed to establish that the court’s purported evidentiary errors affected its substantial rights during trial.

In an action brought against a firearm manufacturer by a man who sustained a leg injury when his gun spontaneously fired, a federal district court in Georgia denied the manufacturer motions for a new trial, remittitur, and judgment as a matter of law. The court found that the owner’s experts’ opinions that a tabbed trigger would have prevented the subject gun from firing were admissible as to his design defect claim, that there was proof that the owner would not have purchased the pistol had he been warned that the pistol’s design created a heightened risk of unintended discharge, and that the compensatory damages award was supported by evidence of the man’s extensive pain and suffering (Lang v. Sig Sauer, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-4196-ELR (N.D. Ga. Feb. 6, 2025)).

Background. A man returned from work and reached down to remove his holstered Sig Sauer P320 pistol, when the gun unexpectedly fired and shot a bullet through his right thigh, resulting in excruciating pain. He filed suit against the pistol maker, Sig Sauer Inc., claiming that the P320 was defectively designed as it did not include a tabbed trigger and that the manufacturer failed to warn consumers about the P320’s risk of unintended discharges. A jury returned a verdict in his favor and awarded $2,350,963 in damages [see Products Liability Law Daily’s June 24, 2024 analysis]. Sig Sauer moved for a new trial and remittitur on compensatory damages and renewed its motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law (JMOL).

Expert opinions. The man insisted that he did not pull the trigger as the trigger was fully covered when in the holster. The manufacturer’s expert disputed this assertion based on his inspection of the subject gun and holster, opining that the one-sided damage to the holster was not possible if the gun was fully holstered and that there was no evidence of anything that could have contacted the trigger other than the owner’s fingers. The man’s first expert countered that the fact that the gun “stovepiped” indicated that it was in the holster when it fired and added that regardless of what contacted the trigger, the unintentional firing would have been “highly improbable” with a tabbed trigger. The second expert demonstrated that the tip of a pencil could cause a P320 trigger to actuate when pressed on the side, top, or bottom of the trigger, that the pistol thus had a greater trigger area exposed to inadvertent contact and accidental discharges, and that the subject accident would likely not have occurred if the pistol came with a tabbed trigger safety.

JMOL. The manufacturer earlier argued that the man’s experts could not reliably testify that a tabbed trigger would have prevented his gun from firing as they did not know exactly what caused the gun to discharge. The court declined to exclude the experts’ testimonies and now declined to reconsider its ruling, holding that the experts “d[id] not need to identify the causes of the [i]ncident with certainty to testify regarding the same.” Waters v. AIG Claims, Inc., 608 F. Supp. 3d 1120, 1135 (M.D. Ala. 2022). Instead, the proper remedy was vigorous cross examination which was done at trial. The JMOL motion was accordingly denied as to the design defect claim.

Sig Sauer asserted that the inadequate warning claim failed because there was no evidence that had it provided additional or different warnings, the owner would have done something different to prevent the incident. The man testified that prior to purchasing his P320 he spent a lot of time on the company’s website, read and watched reviews, saw Sig Sauer’s advertising that the P320 “won’t fire unless you want it to” and its “safety-without-compromise” promise, and thus trusted that the P320 “was going to be a safe one to carry.” Based on this testimony, a reasonable jury could find that had the manufacturer adequately warned that its pistol’s design created a heightened risk of unintended discharge, the owner would not have purchased the P320 and would not have been injured by it. Thus, the court denied the JMOL motion in entirety.

New trial. The manufacturer argued that certain evidentiary errors made by the court entitled it to a new trial. Prior to the manufacture of the subject pistol, the P320 pistol “met and exceeded” various industry safety standards and was “drop safe.” Following the U.S. Military and a private company’s testing which revealed that the gun could discharge when dropped at certain angles, Sig Sauer reengineered the gun components and offered a Voluntary Upgrade Program to allow P320 purchasers to “enhance” the drop safety of their P320s at no cost. Sig Sauer sought to exclude evidence of this program as irrelevant and prejudicial, but the court denied its motion. The manufacturer challenged this decision, pointing out that the owner’s counsel incorrectly referred to the program as a “recall” of the trigger which it was forced to carry out when the public learned that the pistol wasn’t safe, and improperly urged the jury to “send a message” to the manufacturer with its verdict. The court upheld its decision to admit the evidence, finding it relevant under Fed. R. Evid. 401 since the program evidenced the feasibility of modifying the P320’s trigger, which was relevant to the risk-utility analysis of the design defect claim. Moreover, there was little likelihood of confusion between the man’s alleged defect and the drop safety issue that precipitated the program since the man here never dropped his pistol and had an upgraded pistol. As for the opposing counsel’s challenged statements, Sig Sauer failed to timely object to those remarks or seek a curative instruction during trial, resulting in the rejection of this argument as well.

Next, the manufacturer contended that the court erred by allowing the man to introduce evidence referring to the P320 as a double action pistol because it was irrelevant and used as an “inflammatory attack” on its credibility. The court was unpersuaded and held that (1) the manufacturer failed to raise the issue until the deadline for motions in limine had already passed; (2) the court acted within its discretion by denying the untimely motion; and (3) the evidence was relevant to explaining the P320’s design choices and the credibility of its design engineer. Next, at trial, the owner’s counsel asked the manufacturer’s expert how much money the latter’s company billed on Sig Sauer’s unintended discharge cases, in contravention of the court’s order precluding evidence of other unintended discharge incidents. After Sig Sauer’s objection and the court’s curative instruction, the counsel reframed his question as “how much has your company billed to date in its litigation work for Sig Sauer.” The manufacturer argued that the instruction was inadequate, and that the owner’s counsel should have been prohibited from asking about any compensation pertaining to other matters. This court opined that the jury was specifically instructed not to “draw any inferences or conclusions” from the counsel’s original question, it is presumed that jurors follow the given instructions, and the jury was unlikely to be swayed by a single stray reference to other unintended discharge cases. Even considering the cumulative effect of these purported evidentiary errors, the manufacturer did not show that its “substantial rights were affected” during trial and was thus not entitled to a new trial.

Remittur. The manufacturer asserted that the jury’s verdict of $2,350,963 in compensatory damages was excessive and should be reduced to $500,000, as the current award was 46 times greater than the man’s past medical expenses while several precedents upheld awards that were approximately ten times plaintiff’s past medical expenses or specific damages. However, the mere fact that some cases have upheld such awards did not necessarily create a ceiling for other pain and suffering awards or suggest limitation of the awards to a certain multiplier of specific damages. Smith v. Crump, 476 S.E.2d 817, 821 (Ga. Ct. App. 1996). The jury made its award “in its enlightened conscience” and based upon extensive evidence including (1) the bullet tearing the man’s muscle and tissues to create a gaping hole in his thigh; (2) his contraction of sepsis; (3) being bedridden for several months, using crutches and canes to walk for the next 1.5 year; (4) foot problems caused by his change in gait; (5) the painful process of chemically burning dead tissue; (6) his anxiety and recurring nightmares about the bullet hitting his son; (7) missing work; and (8) suffering long term nerve damage. Accordingly, the verdict was supported by evidence and the remittitur motion was also denied.

The case is No. 1:21-cv-4196-ELR.

Judge: Ross, E.

Attorneys: Daniel Ceisler (Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky P.C.) for Robert Lang. Andrew D. Horowitz (Drew Eckl & Farnham, LLP) for SIG Sauer, Inc.

Companies: SIG Sauer, Inc.

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