Products Liability Law Reporter

A federal district court held that a gun manufacturer was entitled to summary judgment in a suit brought by a police officer who suffered injuries from the allegedly unintentional discharge of a firearm.

Leonce White was issued a Sig Sauer P320 pistol to use as a service weapon for his job at the City of Riverdale Police Department. While he was in the process of holstering his weapon during a training at a firing range, the gun allegedly discharged, causing him to suffer a gunshot wound to his thigh. White sued Sig Sauer, Inc., alleging state law claims for negligence, breach of the warranty of merchantability, breach of the warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The plaintiff asserted that the P320 fired without a trigger pull and had a design or manufacturing defect, among other things.

The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiff had failed to serve an expert report supporting his allegations.

Granting the motion, the district court noted that summary judgment is appropriate only when the pleadings, depositions, and affidavits submitted by the parties show that no genuine issue of material fact exists and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Once the party seeking summary judgment identifies grounds showing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact, the court said, the burden shifts to the nonmovant to present affirmative evidence of such.

The court added that in a products liability suit, expert testimony is necessary to show a manufacturing defect when the evaluation of the alleged defect falls outside a jury’s common experience and the jury would not otherwise understand how the product was intended to perform. Citing case law, the court also noted that, generally, expert testimony is required to identify design defects and to establish proximate cause in a products liability case.

Here, the court said, the plaintiff has not presented expert evidence supporting his allegation that the P320 was defective, which is an issue outside a layperson’s common knowledge. In contrast, the court found that the defendant has offered several factually similar cases that were dismissed based on the failure of an expert to opine that a defect in the P320 could have caused it to discharge without a trigger pull. The court thus found that the defendant had carried its burden of showing the absence of a genuine dispute of material fact regarding whether the P320 was defective, while the plaintiff failed to carry his burden of presenting affirmative evidence of a genuine dispute of material fact on the defect issue.

Consequently, the court ordered the clerk to enter judgment in favor of the defense.

Citation: White v. Sig Sauer, Inc., 2024 WL 289928 (N.D. Ga. Jan. 25, 2024).