Liability Issues

[ZDL]

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[tracker722]

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[tracker722]

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[TommyG]

I am not an attorney but I do deal with large civil litigation cases every day at work. There is no end to the idiotic arguments that plaintiff attorneys will put forth to try and make a recovery. What you deal with after a shoot will have a lot more to do with the individual who was shot and the immediate family than which rifle you used.

If they are the "suing type" you are going to be heading to some depositions and turning over a lot of records in discovery. The goal is not to really prove that the retarded argument that they put forth is true i.e. your personally assembled rifle is "more deadly" than a factory Bushmaster. The goal is to get your employer, or their insurance carrier look at the costs of the ongoing lawsuit and put up some $$$$ to make it go away.

It is a sad state of affairs. There are no effective rules for defendants to recover their expenses for frivolous suits filed against them so you either have to buy your way out or defend the stupid thing at the cost of time and $$$$. That means your officers are sitting through days of depositions instead of patroling and your administrative staff has to comply with mountians of paper discovery instead of getting real work done. Then you get to the jury and they award the estate of someone who really needed to be shot millions. 99% of these are settled in spite of the fact that the allegation is the most retarded thing you have ever heard.

[PRGGodfather]

I have never seen evidence of a good shoot that was turned into a bad one because the shooter used customized equipment.

Yup. Especially when the modifications were done to improve reliability, or enhance performance -- and done by a competent and certified individual. If you're a kitchen table gunsmith, prepare for voir dire -- or just go to an armorer's course and pick up the certificate. It's not that hard. Get it done right, and you have little to worry about.

I cannot think of a time where a good shoot was questioned based on equipment, period.

What HAS occurred is cops have lost their jobs for using equipment in violation of department policy. Using .357 when not authorized in .38's, for example.

Rampant legalistic imagination is cause for a lot of mental masturbation. "So you used a Mossberg Persuader? Were you trying to 'persuade' my client?" Meh.

Hell, night sights are modification, too -- and my guess is no one at the PD certified the tritium.

[dbrowne1]

I am not an attorney but I do deal with large civil litigation cases every day at work. There is no end to the idiotic arguments that plaintiff attorneys will put forth to try and make a recovery. ...

It is a sad state of affairs. There are no effective rules for defendants to recover their expenses for frivolous suits filed against them so you either have to buy your way out or defend the stupid thing at the cost of time and $$$$. That means your officers are sitting through days of depositions instead of patroling and your administrative staff has to comply with mountians of paper discovery instead of getting real work done. Then you get to the jury and they award the estate of someone who really needed to be shot millions. 99% of these are settled in spite of the fact that the allegation is the most retarded thing you have ever heard.

I don't know what you do (insurance or risk management?) and not to sidetrack this thread, but I've spent about equal time on each side and I can tell you that the defense bar can be equally idiotic and obstinate. They are a big part of the problem too.

There are many cases where there is some exposure and they should be settled, but defense attorneys dig in and pep-talk the aduster into lowballing it, and churn up all sorts of work so they can make their hours and billing revenue. Defense lawyers don't make money by settling cases, they make money by churning their files. Some of them just get joy out of throwing up every responsive pleading and taking every avenue of discovery possible in order both make money and because they think it will make the plaintiff/plaintiff's attorney miserable. In other words, for reasons unrelated to the merits of the case.

You're also wrong about there being no remedy for frivolous filings. The federal courts and most state courts can and do sanction parties and attorneys for stupid shit. I wouldn't say it's routine, but it happens with some regularity.

[TommyG]

dbrowne1 - I agree with you 100%. Insurance companies, adjusters and their clients are led down the primrose path by the defense bar in many cases. There are a lot of carriers and commercial entities that have a bad attitude about accepting responsiblity for their mistakes and making it right too. I don't beleive that makes the situation better for anyone either.

I agree there are sactions for frivolous suits but they are really a joke. A couple of thousand dollars in sactions is not much help when your business just put out $200,000 to defend a suit.

Back to the subject at hand, I am simply no longer surprised by any allegation that I seen in a Civil Suit or the fact that it is not dimissed early on.

[CoryCop25]

Back to the subject at hand, I am simply no longer surprised by any allegation that I seen in a Civil Suit or the fact that it is not dimissed early on.

This is the reasion I asked you people for your opinions.

For the record, there are no modifications to the parts. The rifles that are built were built with factory parts that were picked by the individual officer. Other than a couple of RRA and Gissele two stage triggers (which are still drop-in parts), everything else is standard.

Thanks for all of the input people!

[Safetyhit]

An interesting question came up this evening at the nightly Wawa coffee/FOP meeting.

I can't believe no one has asked what Wawa means yet. Something we take for granted around the Phila suburbs of course, but surely odd sounding to the rest of us.


Anyway, this is a rather fascinating thread. Very three dimensional.

[Rider79]

I have never seen evidence of a good shoot that was turned into a bad one because the shooter used customized equipment.

Luis Alvarez?