Federal Court holds SIG Sauer liable for P320 shooting accident

A jury in the US state of Georgia has found New Hampshire-based gun manufacturer SIG Sauer liable for the shooting death of a man who claimed his P320 pistol fired even though he did not pull the trigger. The jury also awarded the company $2.35 million in damages.

This is the second of several dozen lawsuits involving the company’s flagship pistol to go to trial, and the first in which a jury found the weapon was flawed in design.

On June 20, after about nine hours of deliberation, a jury in federal court in Atlanta unanimously acquitted Robert Lang of Roswell, Georgia, on all counts. They concluded not only that SIG Sauer had faultily designed the P320, but also that the company had failed to adequately warn consumers about the risk of accidental discharges.

The ruling comes amid a storm of controversy surrounding SIG Sauer over its popular P320 pistol. In April 2023, The Trace and The Washington Post published an investigation showing that more than 100 people had claimed their P320s had fired without the trigger being pulled and that at least 80 people had been injured in the shooting. SIG Sauer insisted that the incidents were due to improper handling and that the P320 was safe to use.

In the year since the Post/Trace investigation, 14 more people have sued SIG Sauer and 13 more have reported injuries.

During the Georgia trial, Lang acknowledged that it was possible that an unknown object or pressure from his gun’s holster could have tampered with the trigger, but he argued that a properly designed gun would have safeties that would prevent it from firing in such a situation. At the very least, it would be sold with a warning about the weapon’s sensitivity.

“I just hope that my verdict will be the tip of the spear,” Lang told The Trace after his trial concluded. “I hope that SIG finally does the right thing and makes sure that no one dies from this defect.”

Lang was carrying the latest version of the P320 pistol – which came to market after the company changed the design in 2017 – when he tried to remove the holstered weapon from his belt one evening in December 2018 as he returned home from work. As usual, Lang loosened his belt and reached for the gun’s handle. That’s when, he says, still fully secured in the holster and with his fingers flat against the holster’s belt clip, away from the trigger, it fired.

The bullet pierced Lang’s thigh and exited just above his kneecap, he told The Trace. His wife and 2-year-old son, both of whom were home at the time, screamed at the blast. An ambulance arrived quickly and took Lang to the hospital, where he was treated and released that same evening. He still suffers from sporadic nerve pain in his thigh and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a medical expert hired by his lawyers.

The majority of the damages awarded will compensate Lang for past and future pain and suffering, while the remainder – about $50,000 – will cover medical expenses incurred as a result of his injury, including a three-day stay in intensive care after the wound became infected.

When The Trace asked questions about the case, Samantha Piatt, a spokeswoman for SIG Sauer, referred to a public statement saying the company “strongly disagrees” with the verdict in Lang’s case and plans to appeal. “There are no facts to support that Mr. Lang’s discharge claim arose from anything other than his own negligent handling that caused him to pull the trigger of the P320 pistol,” the statement said. “SIG SAUER is extremely proud of our long history of manufacturing high-quality firearms and our unwavering commitment to safety.”

In 2022, SIG Sauer won a jury trial in a case involving another defect in the P320. At least 12 other lawsuits against the company were dismissed.

Firearms are one of the few products exempt from federal product safety regulations. Despite the dangers posed by a malfunctioning firearm, no federal agency can investigate alleged defects or issue recalls when models are found to pose a safety risk. When a firearm malfunctions — even if a jury decides the malfunction was due to a design or manufacturing defect — it is the gun manufacturer’s responsibility to investigate the problem and inform the public.

Lang’s ruling does not require SIG Sauer to recall the P320, change its design or inform the public about potential safety risks.

Results from tests on Lang’s pistol before his trial showed that only 4.5 pounds of pressure was needed on the gun’s trigger to fire it — significantly less than the 4.5 pounds of pressure promised to consumers in the gun’s manual. The trigger only had to move one-sixth of an inch — about the width of five credit cards — before it went off. In contrast, the trigger on a Glock pistol had to move more than twice as far, tests for the trial showed.

Jurors concluded that SIG Sauer was liable for Lang’s shooting because the company did not equip the P320 with a special trigger safety like those used on Glocks and many other similar weapons. Trigger safeties are essentially small tabs on the front of a gun’s trigger that must be fully depressed before the trigger moves. They are designed to ensure that guns do not go off if they are dropped or if indirect pressure is applied, such as from a holster.

During the trial, SIG Sauer representatives explained that the original P320 prototypes were equipped with trigger safeties, but the company eliminated the model after a version without a safety passed a series of widely used industry safety tests. SIG Sauer marketing materials stated that the company would offer a version of the P320 with a trigger safety for sale, but that never happened.

Further testimony focused on inconsistencies in SIG Sauer’s description of the P320’s basic firing mechanism. In product catalogs and brochures from 2015 and later in testimony, SIG Sauer has stated that the P320 uses what is known as a double-action firing mechanism. Double-action weapons work like a bow and arrow: When the trigger is pulled, a metal pin inside the weapon is pulled back (action one) and then released (action two). The pin strikes the bullet, causing the weapon to fire.

Many firearms experts consider double-action weapons to be safer than single-action weapons, where pulling the trigger only releases the pre-tensioned bow, as the risk of an accidental discharge is lower.

During Lang’s trial, Sean Toner, who designed the P320, said that while he had testified in previous trials that the P320 was a double-action pistol, he now agrees that it should be more accurately described as a single-action pistol. “I only recently came to that conclusion,” Toner said, according to a transcript of his testimony.

The P320’s trigger and firing mechanism were the subject of testimony about SIG Sauer’s “voluntary upgrade program” in 2017. That fall, video evidence surfaced showing the P320 firing when dropped at a certain angle. A day later, SIG Sauer announced it would change the pistols’ design and that customers with the original model could return their guns for free to have the upgrade installed. The company has insisted that this program does not amount to a recall and that the original model is safe to use. The original P320s are still available in some gun stores today.

CNN later reported that SIG Sauer knew about the drop-fire problem at least a year before notifying the public. Lang’s lawyers argued that the early drop-fire concerns discovered during U.S. Army testing in 2016 should have prompted SIG Sauer to make changes to the weapon’s design.

In response to The Trace’s earlier reporting on the P320, several members of Congress supported legislation that would give the Consumer Product Safety Commission oversight of firearms product safety, but that effort has stalled in committee.

“A jury’s decision to hold gun manufacturer SIG Sauer responsible for its defective pistol has renewed the urgency to pass my gun safety bill,” said Rep. Robin Kelly, a Democrat who represents northeastern Illinois, including parts of Chicago. “It is absurd that the CPSC can regulate teddy bears – but not guns. The CPSC should be able to recall defective guns just as it can recall defective bicycles, batteries and all other common household items.”

Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said she would continue to push her Defective Firearms Protection Act, which also aims to bring firearms under the jurisdiction of the CPSC. “The gun industry remains the only domestic consumer product manufacturer in the United States exempt from federal health and safety regulations,” she said. “We have seen the danger that poses, as demonstrated by this case and several others like it.”

Robert Zimmerman, one of the attorneys representing Lang, is currently litigating on behalf of more than 60 plaintiffs who accuse SIG Sauer of faulty design of the P320. He told The Trace he was pleased the jury agreed the gun was “flawed and dangerous.”

“We call on SIG Sauer to redesign this pistol for the benefit of their law enforcement and private customers,” he said, “and look forward to many more lawsuits to continue to hold SIG Sauer accountable.”