here's the only story I found on Google about this "defect"....the plaintiffs story doesn't make a lot of sense...the gun misfired while he was handing it to his son, and also exploded for good measure.
http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2008/10/25/news/news03.txtso I guess we assume it fired unintentionally while he was handing the loaded weapon to his son, and in addition to firing itself, it also self-destructed?
Firearms are subject to manufacturing defects like any other product, but US made guns are pretty heavily inspected so that gross defects affecting safety very very rarely make it to the consumer. Dangerously defective designs in the marketplace are even rarer....self-reporting and recalls stop most of those very quickly.
The vast majority of product liability claims against firearms manufacturers....other than the anti-gunner's bogus design claims.....are operator error....nearly always involving violation of Rule 1. Blow up cases are almost invariably gross overloads, wrong caliber ammo, or barrel obstructions.
I have represented S&W, Colt, Rem. and currently USRAC over the years, and have yet to see a valid design defect claim.
But unless Attorney Holt is in the process of committing malpractice, if he has an April 2009 trial date, he must already have an expert and an expert report, so why he would be trolling a firearms site asking semi-literate questions is a bit of a mystery, no?
If the design is proven defective, then it should be recalled and the victims compensated. Based on the limited sample of Attorney Holt's abilities, a betting man would have to go with Mossberg on this one.
