Products Liability Law Reporter

A federal district court held that a gun manufacturer may be liable to a couple whose son died of a gunshot wound to the face and head.

Here, 16-year-old Mark Teague, an avid hunter, woke up on a routine school morning in his family’s living room. A few minutes later, Teague’s father found him in a living room chair with his Remington Arms Co. Model 700 bolt action hunting rifle between his knees, having suffered a massive gunshot wound to his face and head. A coroner later deemed the death a suicide.

Teague’s parents, individually and on behalf of his estate, filed suit against Remington Arms Co., Remington Outdoor Co., and others, alleging that Teague’s death was not a suicide but instead resulted from Remington’s defective rifle design, including its trigger assembly known as the Walker Fire Control. The plaintiffs argued that the gun discharged unexpectedly while Teague was attempting to unload it.

The defense moved to dismiss on the basis that the plaintiffs had failed to allege a plausible claim for relief in that they had not pleaded that Teague’s rifle had fired without a trigger pull.

Denying the motion, the court found that the plaintiffs are required to allege facts that, if proven, can establish a claim for strict liability under Montana law. Although the plaintiffs could have alleged more detail about how their son’s rifle actually fired, the court said, they need not do so to survive a motion to dismiss. Their theory—that their thriving 16-year-old son did not kill himself but died after his Remington rifle fired inadvertently into his face while he was attempting to unload it—is clear enough, the court found.

The court added that if Teague’s gun was not in fact defective or if the teenager’s death had been a suicide, then Remington will be able to defeat the plaintiffs’ claims at trial. Those determinations are the province of a jury, the court concluded.

Citation: Teague v. Remington Arms Co., LLC, 2019 WL 1570734 (D. Mont. Apr. 11, 2019).

Plaintiff counsel: James McGoldrick and Jeffrey Hightower Jr., both of Dallas; and AAJ member William A. Rossbach, Missoula, Mont.

Comment: In Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms Int’l, LLC, 202 A.3d 262 (Conn. 2019), the estates of elementary school students and faculty killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting sued the manufacturers, distributors, and sellers of the Bushmaster XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle used to commit the shooting. Among other theories, the plaintiffs alleged wrongful death and violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA), Conn. Gen. Stat. §42-110a, based on an unfair trade practice arising out of the defendant’s marketing of the assault rifle to the civil market. The defense filed a motion to strike the complaint, and a trial court granted the motion. Reversing in part, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that, among other things, a jury must decide whether promotional schemes that glorify and encourage gun violence rise to the level of an illegal trade practice under CUTPA. AAJ members Joshua D. Koskoff, Alinor Sterling, and Katherine Mesner-Hage, all of Bridgeport, Conn., represented the plaintiffs.