When the state attorney general recently asked Connecticut’s highest court to revive the lawsuit brought by Sandy Hook families against Remington Arms, it might have appeared that he was taking sides.Instead, Attorney General George Jepsen was demonstrating that the families’ longshot lawsuit has broader implications than holding the nation’s oldest gun maker liable for Connecticut’s worst crime.

Jepsen objects that a lower-court judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2016 because the families didn’t have a direct business relationship with Remington. Jepsen says the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act does not require a direct relationship in order to seek relief, and that the dismissal will discourage people from seeking justice in other product liability cases.

“CUTPA should be construed liberally to effectuate its public policy goals,” writes the attorney general in a nine-page petition to the Supreme Court, known as a friend-of-the-court brief.

Although Jepsen doesn’t take sides in the petition, his intervention can only aid the families’ plea to have their lawsuit returned to state Superior Court, their lead attorney said last week.

“It is always significant when the attorney general’s office weighs in on behalf of the state,” said Joshua Koskoff of Bridgeport. “The attorney general speaks for citizens on legal matters such as this, so to have his interpretation be compatible with what we are saying is very validating.”

The 10 families sued the manufacturer, the distributor and the retailer of the AR-15-type rifle bought by Nancy Lanza and later taken from an unlocked closet by her son Adam and used in the massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook School.

Although federal law shields the gun industry from most liability when firearms are misused, the families advanced their case by arguing that Remington negligently entrusted the rifle through reckless marketing to civilians.

Remington’s attorneys successfully counter-argued that the families did not satisfy the definition of negligent entrustment in federal law, and that the families did not have legal standing to sue under the state CUTPA law because they were neither customers nor competitors of the gun companies they were suing.

When Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis threw out the families’ lawsuit one month before the presidential election, it dropped from the national headlines.

But now the lawsuit is back in the news. Remington filed its response to the families’ Supreme Court appeal last week, arguing that the AR-15-style rifle in question was manufactured, distributed and sold legally to a qualified adult buyer.

“Imposition of legal liability on those who simply manufactured and lawfully sold legally owned firearms that were later used in crimes would circumvent Connecticut law and … lead to limitless liability,” wrote Remington lead attorney Jonathan Whitcomb of Stamford.

The Supreme Court will give the families another opportunity for written arguments before a hearing is scheduled later this year.

One outside legal observer said the attorney general’s intervention could have a big impact on the Supreme Court’s decision on whether to send the case back to trial court, with implications beyond the lawsuit itself.

“If the trail court’s verdict stands, it could limit the number of people who bring claims of unfair trade practices to court,” said John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University. “I think that is very important.”

The key to CUTPA

The attorney general is the most prominent outside party to date to have petitioned Supreme Court to return the case to trial court.

Other outsiders who have filed petitions include a group of emergency room doctors and trauma surgeons, the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, the Newtown Action Alliance, and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Although Jepsen’s petition does not take sides, he has spoken in favor of gun control recently.

For example, in 2016, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the gun control laws Connecticut passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, Jepsen said, “[W]hether it’s defending our current laws from legal challenge or enacting new measures to help protect our most vulnerable citizens from gun violence – we will continue to work to the best of our abilities to address gun violence.”

Jepsen’s office said he had no comment about his petition on Friday.

Jepsen’s chief argument is that the lower-court judge in her verdict placed an unnecessary restriction in the CUTPA law requiring the Sandy Hook families to have a business relationship with the gun companies they are suing.

His argument mirrors an argument made by the family’s lead attorney.

“The CUTPA standing question a very important issue not just for this case but for the citizens of the state,” Koskoff said. “We need a vibrant CUTPA law that can deter deceptive conduct and compensate people who have been aggrieved.”

Remington’s lead attorney also declined to comment on Friday.

Whitcomb addresses the attorney general’s argument in Remington’s response filed last week. He argues that the trial court judge was correct in ruling that the families had no business relationship with Remington and therefore had no standing to sue under CUTPA.

“[The families] do not allege they are consumers of defendant’s products, defendants’ business competitors or in commercial relationships with defendants,” Whitcomb writes. “[The families’] claim to standing, if accepted, would expand CUTPA’s reach in ways that the legislature did not contemplate and that this court has not countenanced.”

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