Remington Ordered To Pay $500,000 In Personal Injury Case
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 6 months ago
A federal judged ruled against Remington Arms in a personal injury case despite arguments that the gun maker is protected under Louisiana law.
Judge Ivan Lemelle ruled that the case has merit under the Louisiana Products Liability Act, saying the law protects gun makers from lawsuits except in cases involving a defective firearm. He awarded $500,000 to the plaintiff, Precious Seguin, for her claim holding Remington liable for producing a defective product.
According to court documents, Seguin was injured during a hunting excursion in October 2013. As she tracked the blood trail of a wounded deer with her father, brother and a family friend, her father’s Remington 710 bolt-action rifle discharged as they made their way through the brush. The bullet struck her right buttock, traveled through her hip and exited through her right elbow.
The lawsuit argues the rifle’s trigger design, the infamous Walker Fire Control, a mechanism that has been linked to almost a dozen deaths and numerous injuries, allowed the gun to discharge without the pull of a trigger. In Seguin’s case, her father had the rifle strapped over his shoulder and pointed upward until a branch knocked it up and backward, at which time the safety moved to the fire position and unintentionally discharged. Before Seguin was injured, they had not experienced an unintentional discharge with the rifle.
So this is more on the Walker Fire Control System. Good grief, people. I was among the most vocal critics of Remington on the gun blogs, using my engineering credentials to advocate that Remington had misled their constituency and gun buyers, and in fact they’re still lying. The Remington 700 has indeed been tested to fire when the trigger isn’t being pulled. Their own test data shows it. Good Lord! Their own test data shows it.
But how far do we take this? Now that Remington has settled the issue in court, it’s finished. Let it go. Everyone who knows anything about guns – and you shouldn’t be a hunter if you don’t know anything about guns – knows what Remington has been charged with, and knows that Remington settled.
Legal settlements mean something or they don’t. Besides, I don’t know what really happened on that day Seguin was injured since I wasn’t there, and neither do any of my readers, and neither does the idiot judge who ordered this payout.
It’s time to put this to bed. It’s finished. Buy Remington, or don’t. It matters not to me. But this issue is closed as far as I’m concerned. I hope Remington’s lawyers end this swiftly and surely. If they don’t, let me make it clear. At this point I have no compassion left for people who want to sue Remington for damages from a trigger system that has been recalled. Do your homework, people.
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On May 23, 2017 at 11:51 am, Lina Inverse said:
Hate to disagree with a good screed, but this incident happened in 2013, the settlement was struck in 2014. The settlement only covers fixing people’s rifles, says nothing about people putatively injured by them, especially before the settlement. And as far as I can tell the Walker Fire Control System has never been subject to a recall (the X-Mark Pro was due to a manufacturing error).
On May 23, 2017 at 12:38 pm, Herschel Smith said:
I believe that the Walker trigger was recalled and Remington offered to fix or replace the trigger free of charge, including shipping charges. The class action lawsuit was precisely for those who had had any malfunctions PRIOR to closure of the lawsuit, and thus the settlement was intended for those people.
Of course, these people may not have participated (or wanted to participate) in the class action, perhaps leading the judge to his conclusion. My beef is that the litigants knew. They knew. They had to know. They knew and they either refused to participate or failed to participate, and are only now suing Remington when the issue is closed.