BRIDGEPORT — The plaintiffs and the defendants in the ongoing Sandy Hook Elementary School gun lawsuit continue to pursue their respective, but divergent, legal goals in the state Superior Court case.
The plaintiffs want to obtain detailed information from the defendants about the marketing of the semiautomatic rifle that a gunman used to kill 20 first graders and six educators at the school in December 2012, and, conversely the defendants want to have the case dismissed.

In legal papers filed on August 31, the plaintiffs’ attorney Joshua Koskoff describes the defense’s recent motion for a summary judgment in the case as the “latest procedural contortion, like those that preceded it, designed to preclude discovery, and avoid a trial on the merits.” The defendants responded in legal papers filed on September 2. A court hearing in the case is scheduled for September 20.

The plaintiffs have repeatedly pressed the defendants to disclose information on the marketing of the semiautomatic rifle in seeking to form a foundation for their case at the upcoming trial. The defendants, however, have repeatedly resisted disclosing certain details through the court’s discovery process, claiming that certain information is proprietary and would damage their competitive position in the firearms industry if publicly disclosed.

Defendants Remington Arms Company, LLC, and Remington Outdoors Company, Inc, have sought to have a judge order that certain proprietary commercial information, which they would disclose to the plaintiffs, be protected from disclosure to the general public and, in effect, to their business competitors.
In response, the plaintiffs have objected to keeping certain documents protected from public view. The plaintiffs have charged that the firms’ marketing of military-style weapons to civilians and the firms’ pursuit of profit, in effect, created conditions that resulted in the deaths of 26 people.

In the court case, the families of some of the victims of the shooting incident are suing the manufacturer, distributor, and seller of the semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle that was used by the shooter.
“A firearm manufacturer should not be required to open its records to the public — and thus to its competitors — simply because it has been sued by private litigants who have been harmed by a criminal’s misuse of a lawfully manufactured firearm,” according to the defendants.

The court case is in the discovery process, in which the plaintiffs’ attorneys are taking formal statements about firearms from Remington’s marketing and sales staff. Through that process, the plaintiffs are obtaining information from the defendants to prepare their legal case in the wrongful death lawsuit.
The plaintiffs contend that Remington’s manufacturing, sales, and marketing activities for the firm’s military-style Bushmaster XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle violate the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA), and that its sale of the firearm to a civilian market was negligent.

Judge Barbara Bellis is presiding in the case. Through the lawsuit, the plaintiffs seek money damages and injunctive relief.

The lawsuit was filed in late 2014. Jury selection for the trial is scheduled to start in April 2018.