Bushmaster caves?

[MikeK]

I just caught the end of a newscast on CBS indicating the manufacturer of the firearm used by the DC 'snipers' is settling with the victims. I hope I was having a nightmare.


Anyone lese hear this? I could be missing a few details.

(edited to add text from the Bushmaster site
Press Release:

September 8th, 2004 5:54PM est

Bushmaster Firearms is pleased to announce a conclusion to the DC sniper case brought by the victim’s families and the Brady organization. The balance of the insurance policy not spent on legal fees, approximately $550,000, will go to the victim’s families for their grief.

Bushmaster reaffirms its commitment to BATF requirements and National Shooting Sports Foundation’s (NSSF) goals.

Bushmaster supports that FFL Dealers and Distributors who sell its products follow the recommendations of the BATF newsletters and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) publication “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” program and their other safety literature.

Bushmaster supports the standards set forth by the BATF in their requirements to be a licensed FFL holder.

Richard E. Dyke
Chairman
Bushmaster Firearms, Inc.
Windham, Maine

 

[El Rojo]

Its called $550,000 is a better settlement than spending $1 million on lawyers to win. It is all about the bottom line.

 

[MikeK]

El Rojo - I understand the bottom line and think that if you have an extra $550,000 to give away (I wish I had that much period) those folks are deserving. However, since virtually all of the gun manufacturers lawsuits have been dismissed in court I think this establishes a bad precident.

I do own a Bushmaster, but I'll have to think real hard before I buy another one.

 

[Don Gwinn]

The key word there is "insurance." There's a good chance that the insurance company had a hand in this, because they're the ones who stand to pay the difference if they go to court and lose.

There's also the possibility that, once Bushmaster made the claim to pay for legal fees, they had the right to use the rest of the maximum payment authorized. If so, then it makes sense for two reasons:

1. If it can keep you or the insurance company from paying millions, and you have the legal right to spend it on those costs but not on anything else, you might as well, and

2. If there's a maximum cap that only left $550,000 to spend on this settlement, odds are the insurance wouldn't have paid a much higher amount which could very well have been won in court, meaning Bushmaster would have been stuck with that debt, which means Bushmaster going under.


I understand your frustration, but it's not like Bushmaster went looking for either a fight or a deal. This got dropped into their laps and it was a shock to everyone.

 

[Tamara]

However, since virtually all of the gun manufacturers lawsuits have been dismissed in court I think this establishes a bad precident.

The suits that have been tossed out of court have been the ones from various money-grubbing municipalities and the ambulance chasers who courted them with a plan to fatten the municipal coffers (and fatten the shark's wallets at the same time.) Judges and juries have done a pretty good job thus far of spotting that scam for what it is.

This case, however, being high profile and having specific victims to point at, would have been a lot more dicey in court. Bushmaster did the right thing, and got off lightly, in all likelihood.

 

[El Rojo]

I actually thought of doing the opposite. I thought of buying something Bushmaster to make up for the money they just lost. Bushmaster isn't selling out. Read their statement. They are reducing costs so they can continue to supply good American's with good firearms. Thank them for it by buying something Bushmaster.

Now the interesting part is can some of you make a comparison between this and the S&W suit of years past? I don't have the time or resources now and would welcome a good honest look at this. Just off of my head, I the S&W agreement was about getting out of all of the potential lawsuits. This is about one specific case. S&W decided to change their policies, Bushmaster decided to settle one lawsuit without changing policies.

Yup, this is just what I think it is. Settling when you can to reduce costs without admitting any sort of liablity or fault and continuing to sell your product and support your policies as just before. I like it. I wish I had some money to send them some financial support.

 

[MikeK]

I respect everyone's opinion, and if it were my company I might do the same thing for financial reasons. I still think it was a bad idea politically/legally.

I'm not a lawyer, but I do gamble on occasion, and I will bet that this settlemnt is used in future gun manufacturer law suits by the gun grabbers.
PM me if you want to place a wager.

I'm from the DC area and have been at many of the sites where the murders took place.

I do own some pre-agreement S&W revolvers (though only a small percentage of what Tamara owns), but don't have the time to do the analysis. I agree that this is different.

Hopefully this won't be detrimental to the AWB sunset next week.

 

[Handy]

From a legal standpoint, it doesn't "establish precedent" if it didn't happen in court.

Seems a shame they had to bother, though. Most of those shootings could have been done with a mail order 1896 Mauser, with no background check.

 

[RED-DOG 40]

This explains it a little better:

E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY FOXFAN CENTRAL
Gun Firms to Pay D.C. Sniper Victims, Families
Wednesday, September 08, 2004


PHOTOS



Click image to enlarge
STORIES BACKGROUND
•
Sniper Muhammad in Court for Pre-Trial Arguments
•
Judge: Muhammad May Face Second Trial
•
Muhammad Attorneys Say Rights Violated
•
Virginia Plans 2nd Death-Penalty Trial for Sniper
•
Sniper Mastermind Muhammad Sentenced to Death
•
Timeline in Sniper Shootings
SEATTLE — The manufacturer and dealer of the rifle used in the Washington, D.C.-area sniper shootings (search) agreed Wednesday to pay $2.5 million in a settlement with victims and victims' families.

The settlement with Bushmaster marks the first time a gun manufacturer has agreed to pay damages to settle claims of negligent distribution of weapons, said Jon Lowy, a lawyer with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence (search). He helped argue the case. He said the settlement with Bull's Eye Shooter Supply is the largest against a gun dealer.

"These settlements send a loud and clear message that the gun industry cannot turn a blind eye to how criminals get their guns," Lowy said.

Bushmaster Firearms (search) of Windham, Maine, agreed to pay $550,000 to eight plaintiffs. Bull's Eye Shooter Supply (search) of Tacoma, where the snipers' Bushmaster rifle came from, agreed to pay $2 million.

Kelly Corr, the attorney representing Bushmaster, said the company made "no admission of liability whatsoever."

He said Bushmaster and its insurance company, which will pay the $550,000, decided to settle rather than continuing to run up legal fees in court. Corr said the settlement will not change the way Bushmaster conducts business.

"Bushmaster believes it is a responsible manufacturer," he said.

As part of the settlement, though, Bushmaster agreed to educate its dealers on gun safety.

A lawyer representing Bull's Eye did not immediately return calls for comment Wednesday night.

A judge will determine how to divide the settlement among two people who were injured in the shootings and the families of six people who were killed.

John Allen Muhammad (search), 43, was convicted and sentenced to death for murder in one of the 10 fatal shootings in October 2002 in the Washington, D.C.-area. His co-conspirator, 19-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo (search), was tried separately, convicted of murder in a different death and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

They used a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle, a civilian version of the military M-16.

The civil lawsuit alleged that at least 238 guns, including the snipers' rifle, disappeared from the gun shop in the three years before the shooting rampage. Despite audits by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (search) showing that Bull's Eye had dozens of missing guns, Bushmaster continued to use the shop as a dealer and provided it with as many guns as the owners wanted, the lawsuit alleged.

"It appears that 17-year-old Malvo was able to stroll into this gun store and stroll out carrying a 3-foot-long, $1,000 Bushmaster assault rifle," Lowy said. "Bull's Eye should have taken reasonable care to prevent guns from being stolen. Bushmaster should have required Bull's Eye to implement simple, reasonable security measures."

Seattle attorney Paul Luvera represented the victims' families. He called the settlement "historic" and said it should change practices in the firearms industry.

"When a manufacturer makes a large settlement like this one, it is an example to other manufacturers," Luvera said.

The victims' lawsuit, filed in January 2003, also names Malvo and Muhammad as defendants. Those claims are technically still pending, though they are unlikely to be resolved.

A bill was proposed in Congress earlier this year that would have given the firearms industry immunity from lawsuits such as this one. Despite strong support from President Bush, it died in the Senate.

 

[Tamara]

"When a manufacturer makes a large settlement like this one, it is an example to other manufacturers," Luvera said.

Methinks he doth protest too much. Then again, I would be too, if I had just gone belly up after such a miserable performance.

Here's what he didn't say (for the benefit of those of you fortunate enough to have not slogged through the process of a lawsuit):

There were how many plaintiffs in this case? Ten? More? That's $55k apiece. Before the lawyer's cut (33% is customary...) In a negligent death lawsuit. $55k less contingency fees! The guy on the back of the phonebook could extort that much out of the local convenience store if you slipped and broke your ankle, never mind what he'd get you if Aunt Agnes slipped and broke her damn fool neck.

So, Luvera & Co. went to their clients and said "Look, we've got bupkis for a case. This could drag out for years more and you'd wind up with squat. Assuage your bogus grief with this pittance, 'cause it's all we're likely to get." Then he tries to cover the fact that he and his clients had to slink off with their tails between their legs by mumbling stuff about "examples" to the press. Funny, actually.

 

[K80Geoff]

This is a common practice for lnsurance companies, pay the plaintiffs off rather than going to court. Court costs $$$ and insurance companies avoid lengthy trials like the plague.

Ambulance chasing liars know this and know it is a way to make fast bucks without actually having to work at it. They will actually encourage their clients to accept the settlement.

I have seen this time and again in my line of work, even if you are totally in the right the insurance companies reserve the right to settle. Says so right in the insurance papers I get for my business.

Anyone who thinks our legal system works the way it should is blind.

 

[stevelyn]

This suit wasn't brought on by any wrong doing on Bushmasters part and probably wouldn't have stood up in court.
It was more or less a lashing out by the families of the victims knowing that Muhammad and Malvo wouldn't have a pot to p!$$ in or a boot to pour it out of, went after the obvious money tree, the manufacturer.
You know if justice were really to prevail, Muhammad's execution would be carried out by victims and their families using poorly placed shots from Bushmaster rifles.

 

[pax]

Once you have paid the danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.

IOW, it might have been a temporarily smart (and even necessary) move on Bushmaster's part ... but paying such things means the blackmailers are encouraged to keep doing the same thing and worse.

pax

 

[alan]

I've always been curious about tis sort of thing, and it involves all sorts of businesses, aside from gun makers.

A corporation steps on it's own you know what, gets caught out, or it appears that such might be the case. Suits and or other legal actions are brought or threatened. The "defendant" pays some money, perhaps a bunch of money, but denies having done anything wrong, also proimses not to do "it" anymore.

Perhaps it's all just the working of our legal system, but I had thought that the paying of a fine, maybe this isn't a "fine" was tantamount to being "punished". I also thought that changing ones operating methods or business practices, if that is actually done, also amounted to some sort of admission.

Perhaps it's all a question of dollars and cents, along with the fact?? that the insurers rule the roost, it just strikes me as strange, but then what do I know?

 

[Tamara]

Here's the equation from the relevent sides:

Bushmaster and their insurance company: Is it going to cost us more than $550k to string this one out in the courtroom, win or lose?

Plaintiff's attorneys and the plaintiffs: If we string this out, do we stand an even moderately decent chance of collecting more than $550k?

These were the only equations involved. Bushmaster saved money. They avoided the possible fate, however slim the chance, of a defeat in court (which would have been much worse for our side than any out-of-court settlement, boys & girls.) The plaintiffs got something, which they apparently considered preferrable to the nothing that they feared they might wind up with in court. (...and as I mentioned above, the something they got was a chump change settlement. They'd do better to drive to the nearest Mickey Dee's and dump hot coffee in their laps.)

This is the way it works.

 

[dZ]

i'm thinking, i need a threaded barrel assembly and a phantom from ole Bushmaster, better get a bayonet lug too.

 

[FirstFreedom]

It's important to understand that

there is NO legal (bad) precedent, when the settlement includes a specific "no admission of liability" as this one apparently does.

Yes, it's a bad precedent as a practical matter (it may encourage more similar lawsuits on the make-em-settle-for-simple-economics principle, but it's not in any way a legal precedent for the future ability to make the argument in court that "these plaintiffs are morons; it ain't the gun mfr'er's fault").

It's also a bad practical precedent where there are multiple defendants presenting a unified front, and doing same is a sellout warranting a boycott if and when it occurs, IMO, as S&W did before.

Lookit, another extremely important thing to understand is that: Yes, although the insurance company and their lawyers surely had a hand in encouraging the settlement, the insurance company (and their lawyers) are NOT, NOT, NOT the final word in determining whether or not to accept the settlement terms - the company is! The insurance company may supply attorneys that recommend courses of actions. But under attorney's ethical rules, the CLIENT always ultimately determines major decisions, such as whether or not to proceed to trial. The lawyer must let the client (here, Bushmaster) make that decision - that is the lawyer's ethical duty. Bushmaster made this decision, not their lawyers. Now, when BOTH the insurance company lawyer's AND Bushy's own in-house lawyers are encouraging settlement to management, there's an awful lot of pressure to do so, but it's still management's decision, not lawyers, either in-house, or insurance-company-supplied.

Alan, what Tamara said is correct. It's a simple present cost vs. possible future costs equation, on both sides. When a company settles for any amount when the underlying suit appears 100%, or 99% non-meritorious, as this one does apparently, then that amount is what's known as the "nuisance value" of the lawsuit. The "nuisance value" of this suit was 500K. Keep in mind that it did not rise to that level of nuisance value (thankfully) until the plaintiffs' lawyers (and or their clients, the plaintiffs) had spend tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands perhaps) themselves preparing it, filing it, and preparing for trial. The nuisance value may have been $1,000 or $5,000 on the day that the plaintiff's attorney agreed to take the case, but fortunately they can't jack it up until they done a ton of work preparing it for trial (because this in turn makes the other side prepare for trial, and contemplate the actual trial costs themselves, which are enormous).

 

[Tamara]

...as it turns out, the plaintiff's attornies (IE: The Brady Bunch) didn't get a penny. Sucks to be them.

 

[FirstFreedom]

Yeah, that is a smiley face. Not sure of the details there....

Tamara, let me interject a totally off-topic observation here, since you're hanging out at TFL today, since this does not warrant its own thread: Regarding your sig line....although true, I find it ironic that you pick that sig line, as a gun owner, since it's the wonderful idea known as a "democracy" or "simple majority rule" that brings to us the utopian measures know as the "1994 Clinton Crime Bill" and other various and sundry measures sometimes mislabeled "gun control", whereas OTOH, it is our "Constitutional Republic", which is a check-and-balance twist on the base form of "democracy" which allows us, in theory at least, to thwart "majority rule" (thank gawd) when it violates fundamental constitutional principles, such as freedom of RKBA, freedom of speech, etc. What gives?

 

[Tamara]

What gives?

Read the sigline carefully. (Hint: How did Og and Zog get Thurg's stuff? )