Sandy Hook families maybe are not done?
https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Sandy-Hook-families-settled-for-73-million-with-16931068.php?t=5c6fdbcac5&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=test&utm_campaign=CT_NHR_MorningBriefing&sid=5baaacf72ddf9c545d737065Sandy Hook families settled for $73 million with Remington, but the documents turned over might be the ‘most valuable part of the settlement’Photo of Rob Ryser
Rob Ryser
Feb. 19, 2022
Updated: Feb. 20, 2022 9:30 p.m.
NEWTOWN — Lost in the reverberations across the country after the “historic” $73 million settlement between Remington and nine Sandy Hook families was their promise that their case against the defunct gunmaker was not over, but could now begin in earnest.
The families’ unlikely victory over what had been America’s oldest and largest gun manufacturer was unlike anything the country has ever seen, not only because the families found a crack in the armor of an industry many believed was immune to liability when guns are misused.
More importantly, the families said, they now have the internal company documents they would have brought to a jury to argue that Remington used “reckless marketing techniques to appeal to at-risk and violent-prone young men.”
As the families won’t have a jury to hear their case, they’ll make their appeal to the American people.
“This was never about the money — it was always about holding an organization accountable for its marketing,” said Scarlett Lewis, the mother of a boy killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. “We have emails that detail (Remington) talking about how much money they were making off the AR-15s, and how they were going to market them to young men.”
Prospects the families will use Remington’s proprietary internal marketing data — which companies strive to protect at all costs — could shake up and reshape the gun industry landscape more than other ripple effects of a settlement the White House called “historic,” experts said.
“These documents are going to be relevant beyond Remington because they don’t just tell the history about how Remington marketed (AR-15s),” said Peter Kochenburger, executive director of the Insurance Law Program and an associate clinical professor of Law at UConn Law School. “These documents provide a pathway to attack other companies. People will say, ‘We have seen these documents, and now we have questions we can ask the next gun company.”
Kochenburger was referring to a case that experts thought was unwinnable in 2014 when a group of Sandy Hook families filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the maker of the AR-15-style rifle used in the 2012 shooting of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. What got legal observers’ attention was how the families tried to loophole through a federal law that protects the gun industry from most liability when its guns are misused, by arguing that Remington showed negligent entrustment in marketing a militarized rifle to civilians.
Although that strategy didn’t work and the families’ case was thrown out of state Superior Court, the Connecticut Supreme Court overruled and found by a 4-to-3 vote that the families had grounds to argue Remington unlawfully marketed the AR-15 under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
When the United States Supreme Court declined to review the case, Remington was out of options and declared bankruptcy for a second time, selling itself off to competitors in an Alabama courtroom, and transferring its defense of the Sandy Hook lawsuit to four insurance carriers, who made the settlement offer to families last week.
A leading gun industry analyst noted that because every state has its version of an unfair trade practices law, the Sandy Hook case is precedent setting.
“Smith & Wesson is going through similar thing in New Jersey that is not necessarily related to bodily injury but has the New Jersey Attorney General going after its marketing practices,” said Rich Duprey, an analyst for Motley Fool, referring to a 2020 subpoena. “This is going to embolden the states to go after gun companies — if they can’t bankrupt them in the marketplace, they can bankrupt them in the courtroom.”
The Newtown-based trade association for the gun industry disagrees about any precedent-setting impact, saying the Sandy Hook settlement was an outlier that “does not alter the fundamental facts of the case.”
Not only is the federal law shielding the gun industry intact and not in danger of imminent repeal, says the National Shooting Sports Foundation, but the Sandy Hook families in the Remington lawsuit “never produced any evidence that (Remington’s) advertising had any bearing or influence over Nancy Lanza’s decision to legally purchase a Bushmaster rifle, nor on the decision of murderer Adam Lanza to steal that rifle, kill his mother in her sleep, and go on to commit the rest of his horrendous crimes.”
“We renew our sincere sympathy for the victims of this unspeakable tragedy and all victims of violence committed through the misusing of any firearm,” the NSSF said in a statement. “But the fact remains that modern sporting rifles are the most popular rifle in America with over 20 million sold to law-abiding Americans and rifles, of any kind, are exceedingly rarely used in crime.”
The families’ lead attorney Josh Koskoff argues the opposite, saying the connection between Lanza’s attraction to the AR-15 and Remington’s targeting of susceptible young men is contained in thousands of pages of documents recently handed over to the families as part of the settlement.
Koskoff and Sandy Hook family members offered a hint of that connection during an emotional two-hour news conference on Tuesday in Trumbull.
Koskoff said the heart of the families’ case against Remington was not so much about guns as it was about greed, arguing the aggressive marketing of the AR-15 rifle to civilians began in earnest when a private equity firm took over Remington in 2005.
“In 2005, there were about 100,000 AR-15s sold,” Koskoff said. “In 2012, there were over 2 million AR-15s sold.”
The ads contained messages including “Consider Your Man Card Reissued” and “Clear the Room, Cover the Rooftop, Rescue the Hostage.” Koskoff said Remington targeted younger, at-risk males in advertising and product placement in violent video games. The lawsuit said the company’s advertising played a role in the school shooting, but did not elaborate.
It was not clear this week how soon the families would make public Remington’s marketing documents, or what form such a presentation might take.
UConn Law School’s Kochenburger expects a new wave of reverberations once they’re released.
“Those documents are probably the most valuable part of the settlement,” he said.
An Associated Press report was used in this story. rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342
