If you follow the news you probably heard that Remington agreed to settle with the Sandy Hood families for $73 million.
I’ve already seen a lot online from the gun community re “fuck Remington, those traitors, they are dead to me, argle bargle blah.”
Let me put some things into perspective with as much info as I have knowing people there.
The lawsuit began in 2014. Since then Remington has been through two bankruptcies and three holding companies.
They are trying to rebuild the company following it’s last bankruptcy and shutting down of the Huntsville facility. The last thing any banks or investors want is a huge lawsuit that has been dogging them for eight years hanging over their heads.
It was most likely a financial decision to settle and clear it off the books and be done with it so they can move on.
Keep in mind, Remington’s insurance tried to settle previously.
Now I know a lot of people are saying “but it’s not about the money, it’s about the principle.”
Yes. But consider this:
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act expressly prohibits this sort of legal action.
The facts are Adam Lanza stole his mother’s gun after killing her.
Remington pushed for summary dismissal under the PLCAA and won.
The Connecticut State Supreme Court reversed the decision based on a highly partisan and dubious decision that argued Bushmaster’s marketing of AR pattern rifles to civilians violated Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Remington appealed to the US Supreme Court and was turned down.
So what we had was a very political State Supreme Court decision that was a bullshit runaround of the PLCAA.
Given that, did you really expect Remington to get a fair trial in Connecticut?
Should Remington have gone to court on principle just lose and be hit with punitive damages that would have wiped it out for good?
If you really want to vent your anger at someone, vent it at SCOTUS for refusing to take up the appeal and assert that the PLCAA is the law and bullshit runarounds are not legal.
And if you say “well, I’m never going to buy a Remington again, fuck them” let me tell you who you are hurting.
The good people of Ilion, New York.
The holding company bastards will bail out with Golden Parachutes like they did before.
It will be the factory workers and engineers who will get laid off with two weeks severance that get fucked.
Yes, it’s an absolutely broken system where the executives who make the decisions profit off their failures as they fail up and the people who just do their jobs pay with their living. And I’d love to change it, but I can’t.
So before the gun community goes all argle bargle, understand the rock and the hard place Remington was put between and by whom, and who will and will not suffer as the result of a Remington boycott.
Maybe. But I suspect Remington chose a short cut in the belief it will allow them to survive, but will find out that it doesn’t do that.
The right answer, one that should be adopted by all gun-related companies, is to go uninsured. It is an effective technique used by at least some companies in the field of skydiving, another field that attracts dishonest lawyers. One of them is known for this; their official registered corporate name starts with “Uninsured”. This works because lawyers don’t want to own a company, they want to suck money out of round-heeled insurance companies. No insurance, no deep pockets.
That may work for a privately owned company, not one owned by investment bastards.
The rifle used by lanza was legally defined as a rifle at that time. It was not legally an assault weapon according to CT law. That should be all they need to win, we didn’t market what a weapon of war to anyone based on the states own definition in law.
However you do also need to consider the CT has a more strongly and unambiguously worded protection for an individuals right to bear arms that has not stood in the way of CT supreme court of saying AWB is OK.
I agree its shitty and this should not have progressed past PLCAA. Remington is now in the shitty spot of loose a shit load of money and maybe have a bad federal precedent or let or insurance company pay and admit no wrong doing and not see a bad precedent.
Remington doesn’t exist anymore. At least, Remington Outdoor Corporation (what was sued) is a bankrupt company with no assets, the settlement was with the insurance companies. Remington the brand is not owned by Remington the company.
As I understand it, all the liabilities for the lawsuit remained with a legal entity (and the insurers) unrelated to any of the portions of the Remington businesses that were sold off out of bankruptcy. I do not believe that the “Remington” company restarting production in Ilion had any part in the settlement. https://thereload.com/analysis-why-did-remington-agree-to-pay-73-million-to-the-sandy-hook-families/ Actually, as I understand it, they do not even own the Remington name but were given a license to use the name (from whoever got the name in the bankruptcy – Ruger?) as part of the bankruptcy sale. It was the insurers who settled, as they have the right to do, and I believe that $73 million was the limit of coverage available from all the insurers.
Indeed, insurance companies have the right to settle, without concern for the wishes or interests of the insured. You give up your ability to influence decisions when you get in bed with an insurance company. That is one of the reasons for going uninsured: you are then able to stop a sellout to evil politicians and their evil lawyer associates.
/rant on
Damnation
Everyone STILL doesn’t get it.
The ‘Remington Firearms’ of today (bought by REMARMS) IS NOT the Remington of the lawsuit AND HAD NOT ONE DAMNED THING to do with the settlement.
The ‘Remington Ammo’ of today (bought by Vista Outdoor) ALSO IS NOT the Remington of the lawsuit AND HAD NOT ONE DAMNED THING to do with the settlement too.
That Remington is bankrupt, dead, and the only thing remaining is the money paid for the assets at the bankruptcy sale. There is no ‘rebuilding’ because there is no corporation to ‘rebuild’ as it is no longer in existence.
This settlement was a decision of the insurance carriers and the lawyers holding the proceeds of the bankruptcy sales and are the ones who made the decision to settle and finally did reach a settlement. THAT IS WHO CHOSE A ‘SHORTCUT’ . It’s what lawyers and insurance companies do. Money is their stock in trade.
Boycotting Remington today will hurt THE NEW COMPANY in Ilion NY and rehired workers.
Boycotting Remington today will hurt THE NEW COMPANY in Lonoak AR and rehired workers
Boycotting Remington today will prove who is the thickheaded ignorant.
Just DAMN
/rant off
Yes, exactly my point. Thank you for understanding.
I don’t want the ignorant in the gun community to hurt workers who have nothing to do with this by brand name association.
Uninsured around here means YOU will be liable for any damages in a lawsuit against you.. in todays political climate you better cya.
No, the company is, and if the company is an Inc then it’s only the company assets that are at risk.
The Uninsured United Parachute Technologies has been in business for over 40 years; I think they know what they are doing. (They are one of the big names in the field, in fact, with a very long track record for innovation and excellence.)
I was actually surprised to hear that Bushmaster (at the time a Remington company) was paying video game makers to include their product in the video games. As much as I hate to admit it, that does place a certain amount of liability on them under the CT advertising law. They marketed a known dangerous product as if it was cool to have and use on humans.
.
Now… It is a bullshit lawsuit. There is no way to spin this other than an end run around the PLCAA. That Remington (No, I do not care whether they are the same company, or golden parachutes, or anything else) settled for a MASSIVE sum bodes extremely poorly for the entire industry.
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Right now, the anti-gun crowd is scouring every state and municipal law to see what other firearm unrelated law they can use against gun manufacturers or seller. Advertise your product and use the wrong word? Yep, we will sue you into bankruptcy. Allow the “no one under 21 allowed” sign to get covered by a postie note? Suit coming your way. Whatever. Seriously. The door is now open for the end of the firearm industry in the US.
.
I would rather have seen Remington/parent company go bankrupt, and all the folks working there on welfare, than have this very tactic weaponized against every single manufacturer and dealer. And, it will be. And, do not tell me for a second that Remington’s management and legal team does not realize that.
What surprises me is that other industries are watching like mushrooms. Do they think the lawyers will be content with only eating the gun industry?
The vehicle industry should be filing amicus briefs and yelling loudly, because I could easily see them as the next one on the chopping block.
The part about being an insurance company problem is important for two reasons. First – yeah, boycotting Remington is stupid and a useless gesture.
Second is the bigger reason. Insurance companies are just like any other company: income has to exceed expenses to survive long term. If this settlement triggers more lawsuits, all those companies are going to raise their rates for the policies and I think it’s only going to be on the firearms industry. I don’t know if gun stores and retailers get insured by those companies, and I don’t know how many manufacturers have insurance with the companies involved, but we’ve got to know expenses for the industry are going up. Which means more pressure on gun prices.
Whether that’s going to affect other insurances, like homeowners’ insurances or policies for your gun collection, I have no idea.
You’re right about insurance company survival. The real problem, as I mentioned, is that the interests of the insurance company and the interests of the insured party are entirely unrelated, and by getting insurance you’re surrendering your right to defend your interests. Instead, the insurance company gets to defend its interests, and if those happen to be somewhat aligned with yours that’s just a lucky coincidence. If they are entirely opposed to yours, tough luck.
John had a good write up on this at https://onlygunsandmoney.com/2022/02/17/the-remington-settlement.html
The TL;DR; Remington that was sued doesn’t exist. All that existed was the liability associated with this lawsuit. The people with the deep pockets were two or three insurance companies. Those companies choose to pay to have the lawsuit go away. Since the company no longer exists, they also agreed to let the plaintiffs publish things that were found through discovery.
This lawsuit sucks the big ones for gun owners as it is a propaganda loss. The plaintiffs will hold this up as a decision that “proves” that the manufacturer of guns was responsible for the shooting.
Because of this loss, a number of gun unfriendly states are changing their laws to make certain types of “advertising” illegal for certain types of manufacturers. This can include such things as product placement in games.
All in all, this is just bad and it came because the CT SC made a bad decision and the SCOTUS didn’t slap them down.
I am a retired insurance defense lawyer. A few policies require the insured’s consent to settle, but most policies do not. In this case, given all the bankruptcy rulings, there likely was no insured left–no actual company to trigger the consent clause. Assuming there was no consent clause, the ins companies do what they think is best since it is their money. Personally, I would have advised the ins companies to go to trial, take a verdict and if they lost, to go the appeal route again. The US Supreme Court would have a much harder time refusing to accept the case if the jury awarded big damages. As to Conn law, Federal law preempts state law. I did not follow the case previously, so I do not know the basis for the holding that Conn law on advertising should be enforced while the Federal law protecting gun manufacturers should be set aside. I would assume that the Conn law was enacted for the express purpose of getting around the Federal protection. If that is true the US Supreme Court could easily reverse the award.
The significant question is whether someone is going to try and sue Ruger or S&W. Both companies’ guns have been used in heavily publicized incidents and both companies are solvent and adamant about not surrendering to gun control. There’s also the possibility of a Lucky Gunner situation where the litigation backfires. Imagine Ruger’s lawyers going after David Hogg and Shannon Watts with discovery orders and counter claims.
It has been suggested that parents whose children have been groomed by the pedophile literature at the local school libraries into becoming trans and have suffered harm thereby…can sue the advertisers for this lifestyle using the Remington precedent. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. There are many ways to make the left wish they hadn’t won this.
Also, consider that we won’t really have any idea what is happening with Remington or a lawsuit because the we can’t believe shit the media says.
That Remington no longer exists. It was broken up and sold to settle bankruptcies. No one at “Remington” had any control left. Only the insurance company that had insured Remington was left to hold the poo bag of the rigged lawsuit. They evaluated that they could not win and settled. It was a financial decision and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING MORE! It was a flaming bag of poo on their doorstep, and they got rid of no matter what any other ramifications might be. Remington Ammunition is now owned by the same folks as CCI. Bushmaster has been liquidated and you can buy the parts on the internet. I forget who bought the firearms manufacturing brand. Marlin (yes, they for a time owned that brand) is now owned by Ruger. Pull up your big boy pants and stop throwing tantrums. No one in the industry “caved in”. That does not change it from being a flaming bag of poo either.