Victims’ families had sued Remington, the maker of the AR-15-style weapon used in the attack at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
Families of people killed in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., said on Tuesday that they had reached a $73 million settlement in their lawsuit against the maker of the AR-15-style weapon the gunman used in the attack.
The agreement, reached with the families of five children and four adults who were killed, appears to be the largest such settlement involving a gun maker and relatives of mass shooting victims.
It also represents a significant setback to the firearm industry because the lawsuit, by employing a novel strategy, pierced the vast shield enshrined in federal law protecting gun companies from litigation.
The families contended that Remington, the gun maker, violated state consumer law by promoting the weapon in a way that appealed to so-called couch commandoes and troubled young men like the gunman who stormed into the elementary school on Dec. 14, 2012, killing 20 first graders and six adults in a spray of gunfire.
“These nine families have shared a single goal from the very beginning: to do whatever they could to help prevent the next Sandy Hook,” Josh Koskoff, the lead lawyer for the families, said in a statement. “It is hard to imagine an outcome that better accomplishes that goal.”
In addition to the financial settlement, lawyers for the families said that Remington agreed to release thousands of pages of internal company documents, including possibly plans for how to market the weapon used in the massacre — a stipulation that had been a key sticking point during negotiations.
The families have said that a central aim of the lawsuit was to pry open the industry and expose it to more scrutiny. Remington had resisted turning over any internal documents, arguing that the families had not presented a legal justification for seeking them.
Remington had proposed settling with the families for $33 million last year, as a trial date loomed. Court documents filed on Tuesday morning did not specify the amount of the settlement.
At the outset, legal experts said the case had little chance of succeeding, believing that their claims ran headlong into the federal protections for gun manufacturers from most litigation when their weapons are used to commit a crime.
But the lawsuit seized upon an exception built into law that allows for litigation over sales and marketing practices that violate state and federal law. The families contend that Remington, the gun maker, did so by marketing and promoting their products in a way that encouraged illegal behavior.
The families pointed to how the AR-15-style Bushmaster rifle was portrayed by the company as a weapon of war, employing slogans and product placement in video games that invoked combat violence. The lawsuit contended that hypermasculine themes — including an advertisement with a photograph of the weapon and the slogan “Consider your man card reissued” — specifically appealed to troubled young men, like the gunman, who was 20.
The lawsuit was originally filed in Connecticut state court in 2014, and it meandered its way through the court system for years without notching much progress. It was moved to federal court before a judge sent it back to the state level, where the families were given a glimmer of hope when the State Superior Court judge, Barbara N. Bellis, allowed the case to move closer to trial before dismissing it, finding that the case was of the sort that the federal protections were meant to curb.
An appeal brought by the families elevated the case to the State Supreme Court. The stakes of the case drew intense interest from both sides of the gun debate, seeing in the court’s decision either an opportunity or a threat.
The state attorney general, gun violence prevention groups, and a statewide association of school superintendents wrote to the court in support of the families’ case. But the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry group that happens to be headquartered in Newtown, argued that the case was centered on “a tragedy of unimaginable proportions,” yet the lawsuit was trying to achieve “regulation through litigation.”
In a 4-3 ruling, the justices ruled that the case could move ahead based on the state law regarding unfair trade practices. Several months later, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the case to continue, denying an appeal brought by Remington.
Most litigation brought by victims and their families has been blocked by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, passed in 2005, which grants industrywide immunity. When he signed the legislation, President George W. Bush praised the legislation as a necessary safeguard to “stem frivolous lawsuits.”
The massacre transformed Newtown, a small Connecticut town, into a flash point in the broader national discourse over gun violence, as the horrifying details of the attack rattled the country and led to renewed calls for restrictions on guns. Ultimately, none were passed on the federal level.
As the drumbeat of mass violence continued across the country, including deadly shootings last year in Colorado and Atlanta, those blanket protections attracted renewed scrutiny. President Biden said last year he wanted to scrap them.
In New York, lawmakers passed legislation in June that would classify the illegal or improper marketing or sale of guns as a nuisance, a technical distinction that supporters said would bolster litigation against gun companies.
Kristin Hussey contributed reporting, and Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
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