The Remington Rifle Settlement Is Final
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 5 months ago
CNBC:
A landmark class action settlement involving some of Remington’s most popular firearms has officially gone into effect, after critics of the agreement declined to take their case to the Supreme Court by a Tuesday deadline, according to an attorney for the plaintiffs.
That means that millions of owners of the iconic Model 700 rifle — and a dozen Remington models with similar designs — have 18 months to file claims for a free replacement of their guns’ allegedly defective triggers. The guns have been linked in lawsuits to dozens of accidental deaths and hundreds of serious injuries, though Remington still maintains they are safe.
“Anyone with one of these guns should take advantage of this opportunity to get the trigger fixed,” said Eric D. Holland, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the class action case. “I’ve encouraged everyone to put these guns away. Don’t use these guns. Make the claims now.”
A special website has been set up with information on how to file a claim, and there is also a toll-free hotline, 1-800-876-5940.
[ … ]
The effective date of the settlement comes almost exactly eight years after CNBC first explored allegations that Remington engaged in a decades-long coverup of a defect that allows the guns to fire without the trigger being pulled.
Remington said the guns have been safe since they were first produced. But the 2010 documentary “Remington Under Fire: A CNBC Investigation” uncovered internal company documents showing engineers warning of a “theoretical unsafe condition” even before the trigger design went on the market in 1948. The company repeatedly decided against modifying the design or launching a recall, even as accidents and customer complaints continued to pile up.
It’s more complicated than simply the rifle firing when the trigger isn’t pulled. The rifle would discharge at times when the cartridge was sent into battery, and Remington engineers knew it and had data from their own testing that showed it.
How sad. After all of the pain, suffering, money, lawyers and loss of reputation to the company, this is apparently the end. All of it could have been avoided by simply doing a recall when the engineers found it. The world is almost always a worse place when people don’t listen to engineers.
Prior: Remington 700
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On October 25, 2018 at 8:25 am, JoeFour said:
“The world is almost always a worse place when people don’t listen to engineers.”
Yes … and especially when they listen to lawyers instead.
On October 27, 2018 at 8:02 pm, J said:
I’ve seen this same problem with a Very High End Custom rifle with a Well known manufacturers trigger.
The Trigger was replaced with a Rifles Basix Trigger and the class continued.
On October 30, 2018 at 10:05 am, Paul Bonneau said:
“Yes … and especially when they listen to lawyers instead.”
Lawyers and bean counters.
However, I don’t think the engineers should be left off the hook. They should have refused to allow the design to be produced no matter what their bosses said. You can’t run such a company without engineers.
But, they didn’t do that. Instead they said, “not my responsibility”.
On October 30, 2018 at 3:58 pm, Sanders said:
I wonder if the new trigger is any good? Maybe they will comp me a Timney?
The 700 I have was given to me by my wife’s uncle. It went off and killed his truck while he was out in the mountains on an elk hunt. He had to hike out about 10 miles. Glad he wasn’t hurt.
He gave me the rifle because, even though he sent it back to Remington for repairs, he said he just wasn’t comfortable packing it around, anymore.
I haven’t had a bit of trouble with it.
On October 30, 2018 at 6:59 pm, Walter Mitty said:
I believe it was on the CNN Special the retired Engineer who designed the trigger mechanism said it would have cost a whopping .50 per rifle to change to the new trigger mechanism and safety He designed to fix the problem.
Management declined to go with the new design. So much tragedy over what today would amount to $5.76 per rifle.
I guess it would have cost the CEO back then too much of a loss on His stock options.
On November 4, 2018 at 10:46 pm, R Daneel said:
Please believe me, as a long time engineer management often lets us know the ‘desired outcome’ even before we begin to collect data.
The Dilbert Principle is in full force in modern business practices.
“The Dilbert principle is a concept in management developed by Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert, which states that companies tend to systematically promote incompetent employees to management to get them out of the workflow.”
Dilbert principle – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle
On November 4, 2018 at 11:09 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@R Daneel,
As a 37-year practicing engineer, I grok your pain.
But you can also believe this. As registered professional engineers, we have a higher duty and calling, first before the Almighty, and then to our oaths and vows as PEs to the states that licensed us, to protect the safety and health of the public.
That comes before anything else. Otherwise, our license and our oaths mean nothing.