I hope to see S&W stand their legal ground rather than settling with the 60/40 Pers Inj attys with or without taking any blame for the actions of an angry, depraved nutjob. I’m sure there will be more defendants than solely S&W, with the weak political stature of posh Highland Park will be first to rollover.
The lawyers are merely seeking a hefty out of court settlement rather than trying to argue the merits of their lawsuit in a lengthy and expensive trial, Similarly, a settlement was reached with Remington. I’ve yet to see anything were S&W had promoted or had marketing plans to target sales solely to to suicidal manics, diagnosed or not.
Lawsuits seeking quick settlement are typical for deep pocket sources, tossed out before ever getting on a docket is a possibility depending on what exactly the plaintiffs argument is. This however will be shopped around for a sympathetic judge, as is always the case when in IL, judges are Party aligned and campaign donation accepting, elected politicians with activism agendas.
Tort reform will never come to Illinois, neither will lawsuits against the elected that are sole responsible for allowing all the violent criminals to be repeatedly released to commit the same or worse crimes again and again while awaiting prior violent transgressions.
If S&W didn’t have a pot to **** in, this would not even be a story.
Chicago‘s monthly violence totals so far is 2,769 shot and 542 murders. Nobody getting sued unless they’re the city/police - doing their job, even the city will turn their back and award settlements, and then allow no stipulations to exclude individual punitive damages.