Sig Sauer’s Bid To Toss $2.3M Ga. Jury Verdict Misfires

U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross said she found unpersuasive the gunmaker’s complaints that Lang introduced “inflammatory” and irrelevant evidence, and that his experts were unqualified.

Law360 (February 12, 2025) — A Georgia federal judge has declined to toss a $2.35 million verdict against Sig Sauer over charges that a defect in its popular P320 pistol caused a man to accidentally shoot himself, saying she was “unmoved” by the gunmaker’s arguments that it deserves a new trial.

U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross — she presided over last year’s trial where Robert Bryan Lang alleged the company cut corners in designing the pistol’s safety features — said she found unpersuasive the gunmaker’s complaints that Lang introduced “inflammatory” and irrelevant evidence, and that his experts were unqualified.

“The court declines to reconsider its ruling that plaintiff’s experts were qualified to provide expert testimony in this case … Instead, the proper remedy to defendant’s critiques of plaintiff’s experts’ testimony was to allow defendant to vigorously cross-examine plaintiff’s experts and for the court to carefully instruct the jury on plaintiff’s burden of proof, as was done at trial,” Judge Ross said in her Feb. 6 order.

Nor would the judge slash the seven-figure damages award Lang won for his injuries, saying Georgia courts have “outright rejected” efforts to cap jury awards for pain and suffering.

“Upon review and consideration, the court finds no justification to set aside or remit the jury’s verdict. … The jury made its award ‘in its enlightened conscience’ and based upon proper evidence,” she added. “Although the precise basis for the jury’s decision can never be known, there is extensive evidence supporting the jury’s verdict.”

The ruling leaves in place what Lang’s attorneys said was the first successful plaintiffs’ verdict over the P320’s alleged defects.

“The jury heard and understood the evidence. The court in great detail identified the significant record that the jury based its decision on,” Lang’s attorney Robert Zimmerman said in a statement Wednesday. “The only ones not listening, unfortunately, are those at Sig Sauer who refuse to change the P320’s design before more law enforcement officers and law-abiding gun owners are injured or killed.”

Sig Sauer has faced multiple suits over the pistol, which is favored by numerous American police departments and is the sidearm of choice for the U.S. military, with allegations the gun is prone to unintentional discharges.

An Atlanta-area resident, Lang said he had carried a P320 regularly as a concealed weapon in the months before his 2018 accident. He said during the June 2024 trial he was a gun owner and enthusiast of some 15 years. Two weeks before Christmas in 2018, he said he was removing the holstered gun from his belt when it fired, and he was shot in his leg.

In addition to the wound wrought by the gun and the hollow-point bullets he kept loaded in it, Lang claimed he suffered from years of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident. He told jurors on the stand he often feared what could have happened if the gun had shot his young son, who’d hugged his leg just minutes before the accident.

At trial, Lang’s attorneys said Sig Sauer could have easily placed a trigger safety — purportedly a five-dollar part — on the pistol, as numerous other gunmakers have with comparable models. Instead, it not only left off the safety, but misled consumers about the gun’s trigger pull weight and action type.

Federal jurors awarded Lang $51,000 for his medical expenses, $1.6 million for past pain and suffering, and $690,000 for future pain and suffering.

Sig Sauer promptly responded with a motion for either a new trial or a striking of the “grossly excessive” verdict.

“Here, the jury’s award was the result of the tactics and arguments of plaintiff’s counsel at trial which were improper, intentionally inflammatory, and undoubtedly confused the issues and spurred the jury to act through passion and prejudice,” the company said last July.

But Lang said the company’s argument — that a pain and suffering award orders of magnitude larger than his medical expenses was unjust — had no basis in law.

“The cost of medical care is not causally related to the amount of pain and suffering one experiences,” Lang said in an opposition motion filed in August.

Sig Sauer could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Lang is represented by Robert W. Zimmerman and Ryan D. Hurd of Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, and Matthew Bonham and Nicholas Protentis of Protentis Law LLC.

Sig Sauer is represented by Andrew D. Horowitz of Drew Eckl & Farnham LLP, and B. Keith Gibson, Kristen E. Dennison and Jonathan T. Woy of Littleton Joyce Ughetta & Kelly LLP.

The case is Lang v. Sig Sauer Inc., case number 1:21-cv-04196, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.