New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Why does Remington want Sandy Hook victims’ records?
Remington claimed it was not the company’s fault, but the actions of the 20-year-old gunman who shot himself to death in the school after first killing his mother in their Newtown home, then driving to the school, where he went on a murderous rampage.
The startling tactic by Remington’s demand for the personal records of five pupils and four adults murdered in the 2012 Newtown school shooting is not legally improper, and it could be a sign that the now-bankrupt gunmaker is inching closer to a settlement on the families’ liability case.
Or it could simply be a move to further antagonize the families as they ponder possible multi-milliondollar offers to end their attempt to hold the gun industry accountable.
State lawyers with experience in liability cases said Friday that while unsavory and possibly inflammatory in the families’ long-running attempt to hold Remington liable for marketing the AR-15-style rifle used in the school attack that killed 20 first-graders and six adults, it’s within the rights of the defendants.
In fact, personal information could be an indicator of the lifetime earning power of the children and adults that would be calculated at trial or in settlement negotiations over the allegations that the onceiconic arms manufacturer recklessly marketed its Bushmaster XM-15.
“What is it you’re thinking you’ll find in first-grade records?” asked David Golub, a veteran Stamford attorney. “There is not going to be anything in a school record that is going to have a meaningful effect. It really feels like a tactic with the company saying ‘Look, you don’t want to settle? We’re going to do this kind of discovery.’ It’s just unnecessary, probably.”
But Golub said that the Remington request, including kindergarten and first-grade attendance, report cards and disciplinary records, along with personnel records of the four adult school employees, stop short of true courtroom hardball. “They could have, for instance
subpoenaed a surviving sibling and brought them into a deposition where they could be asked what kind of kid their brother was,” Golub said in a phone interview.
Rosemarie Paine, a New Haven trial attorney, wondered Friday what the point of trying to obtain the personal information of children so young.
“As a plaintiff’s lawyer, if this type of request were filed, I would want to consider the defendant’s objectives in making this demand and also my clients’ reaction to this demand,” Paine said in a phone interview. “I can’t help but think my clients would feel that this was intrusive and unnecessary, and as a lawyer I question the usefulness of the information sought pertaining to first graders’ records of attendance and discipline.”
Remington claimed it was not the company’s fault, but the actions of the 20-year-old gunman who shot himself to death in the school after first killing his mother in their Newtown home, then driving to the school, where he went on a murderous rampage. While Remington relied on federal protections from liability, the state Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the nine families could go after the gun maker through the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act.
After the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to state Superior Court, Remington’s four insurers are now battling the families, but two — Ironshore and James River — have offered the survivors $3.6 million each to settle, while Chubb and Swiss Re have not.
Courts calculate both the loss of earnings and the less-exact “loss of the enjoyment of life,” in reaching cash awards for fatal liabilities.
Last week, Josh Koskoff, the lawyer for the families, filed a motion to extend certain protections for the families from the attempt to gather the personal files from Newtown schools, charging that it was an attempted invasion of privacy from a defunct corporation.
“The traditional allegation in wrongful-death cases is that you destroyed one’s ability to enjoy life,” Golub said. “A defendant is allowed to, say, look at the educators’ work records, but with school kids, it’s stupid. Remington made these very public offers of compromise.
They are trading signals back and forth. This is not discovery.”