Sig Sauer P320
PHILADELPHIA – A grouping of accidental-discharge cases against SIG Sauer needs the help of ICE to get moving forward.
An ICE agent alleging one of 31 shootings before Judge Mark Kearney – a consolidation SIG Sauer calls “unprecedented” – has been stonewalled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as he tracks down witnesses. He and SIG Sauer filed a motion Nov. 3 to compel ICE to turn over relevant documents and to allow them to depose those who saw the incident.
“ICE has repeatedly ignored or objected without basis to producing relevant information in response to both parties’ Touhy requests,” the motion says.
“The Parties are not asking for anything extraordinary. They merely seek relevant, non-privileged information probative of the claims and defenses at issue—information that exists only in ICE’s files and in the personal knowledge of ICE’s personnel.”
The plaintiff in the bellwether trial is Joshua Southard, who says his P320 went off while holstering it with his finger off the trigger. He is one of only two plaintiffs actually from Pennsylvania among the crowd suing in Philadelphia, and that fact has been a complaint for SIG Sauer, which is headquartered in New Hampshire and objected to facing claims in Pennsylvania.
But the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the state’s “consent-by-registration” law, which essentially says if a company registers to sell its products or services in Pennsylvania it agrees to be sued there.
Earlier this year, Kearney rejected the gun-makers’ arguments, as well as those put forth by the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry and the state Coalition for Civil Justice Reform. The challenge in a case known as Mallory said the law does not violate SIG Sauer’s due process rights.
Kearney’s ruling has not been certified so that SIG Sauer could appeal it while the case is pending. So the litigation heads toward bellwether trials that will impact settlement negotiations between the company and plaintiffs firm Saltz Mongeluzzi.
On Nov. 10, SIG Sauer, which faces similar cases in several states, asked Kearney to sever the Philadelphia cases and transfer those brought by out-of-state plaintiffs. It noted the 31 alleged incidents occurred in 20 different states, and if those cases progress it will be under the laws of those states.
Discovery has been a problem too, the company says, as spanning the country to deliver subpoenas would be “inconvenient.”
“There is no justification for cobbling together one vast, illogical case consisting of 31 separate cases from 28 separate jurisdictions, with at least 20 different state’s laws applying to the issue of liability,” the motion says.
“If there is any convenience associated with this crazy quilt complaint, it redounds to the benefit of only plaintiffs’ counsel and nobody else.”
SIG Sauer touts its success at trial, including an August verdict for the company and the July dismissal of a class action lawsuit. But plaintiffs have had success, though an $11 million verdict in Philadelphia was cut down to $1 million after trial.
