Mr. Bagnell’s litigation and trial work, from 2017 to the present, on behalf of people seriously wounded by the Sig Sauer P320, has been publicized in national media, including National Public Radio, CNN, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, PBS, ABC News, Nightline, Boston Channel 5, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Good Morning America. Numerous police departments have discarded the weapon due to repeated catastrophic malfunctions and his advocacy on behalf of victims nationwide.
http://www.news12.com/story/36095322/officer-injured-by-dropped-holstered-gun-sues-gunmaker
The first lawyer in the nation to recognize the P320’s problems and bring Sig to trial, he has been consulted by law enforcement agencies, attorneys, prosecutors and weapons experts around the country on these ongoing cases. His detailed legal Complaints and filings showing the external and internal problems with the P320 have been widely used and copied by attorneys in other states and US territories. Since 2017 he has called on Sig to recall the P320, or issue an unambiguous safety warning about its first striker-fired pistol. In August 2019, a P320 discharged in a Philadelphia subway nearly hitting a bystander along with hundreds of other incidents around the country in 43 other states from California to Massachusetts and Puerto Rico.
He is the originator and author of the multi-plaintiff P320 litigation in the U.S. District of New Hampshire, including Armendariz et al. v. Sig Sauer, Inc., where 68 victims of the P320 currently have cases pending. “After seeing the disadvantages of litigating single plaintiff P320 cases all over the country, I decided to take them to Sig’s home state of New Hampshire in a class-like action and brought the cases to Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky given the administrative burden of having so many plaintiffs.” Bagnell contends that the poor build quality of the gun, use of Indian-sourced parts, and lack of secondary machining of critical surface interfaces has caused many to discharge without the trigger being pulled.
https://www.inquirer.com/business/sig-sauer-guns-septa-ice-misfiring-suits-police-20210227.html
In his most recent jury trial in Sig’s home state of New Hampshire in July 2022, a federal judge found that his client Kyle Guay’s P320 fired while fully seated in its holster after a divided jury returned hung on all five counts after three days:
“The court found Guay credible in every respect. Specifically, the court credits Guay’s testimony that the gun was still fully inside the holster when it discharged. With the gun fully in the holster, Guay could not have accessed the trigger; it would have been impossible for him to have accidentally pulled it. Moreover, as expert testimony revealed, the P320 had a 6.7 pound trigger, meaning that to fire, the user had to exert 6.7 pounds of pressure. The court does not believe that Guay could have applied that amount of force to the trigger inadvertently while the gun was in the holster”.
And found Sig’s experts claim that it is “impossible” for the P320 to fire without a trigger not credible:
To the extent that Watkins and Toner testified that it is impossible for a P320 (or for Guay’s P320) to have fired without a trigger pull, the court finds their opinions unpersuasive. As discussed, the court found credible Guay’s testimony that he did not pull the trigger, and the video of the Roscommon incident was persuasive in showing that a P320 can fire without a trigger pull. Furthermore, Watkins admitted that—despite having read the numerous allegations of misfires (without a trigger pull) in the complaint—he did not deem them worthy of mention in his expert report. And Toner testified that he found such misfire allegations unworthy of investigation. Had Watkins and Toner been less dismissive of these allegations, the court may have found their testimony more credible.
“When we brought these first few cases, I had the advantage of some firearms experience which was relatively unique for a lawyer. I put it to use to believe and then help a wounded SWAT officer in Connecticut and then Marcie in Virginia. Very few people believed that a gun could malfunction at the time. It just happened again this week in Connecticut and Florida with the clearest video to date and It’s simply a matter of time before it happens again. The company must take responsibility for this severe safety problem instead of hiding behind lawyers, targeting me, concealing evidence, gaslighting law enforcement agencies, blaming holsters, keys, drawstrings, unidentified “foreign objects,” and evading responsiblity year after year.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUe8Fns2v-w
In June 2019, he successfully concluded a jury trial in the United States District Court in Virginia on behalf of one of his law enforcement clients, Deputy Sheriff Marcie D. Vadnais, whose holstered P320 fired without a trigger pull into her leg in February 2018 severing her femur. During the first day of the trial, she gave the following testimony that brought many jurors to tears and temporarily halted the proceedings:
I have worked so hard to get where I am and to be who I am so that my kids are proud of me and look up to me, and this company destroyed that from me. I have — all I have tried to do is be a mom, have a career, be successful, and their carelessness took that away from me.
And they don't care. They don't care! How many times is this going to happen??!
Vadnais v. SIG Sauer, Inc., Trial Testimony, Day 1, (EDVA 2019).
https://geomatrixproductions.com/out-gunning-a-gunmaker/
http://www.news12.com/story/36095322/officer-injured-by-dropped-holstered-gun-sues-gunmaker
His initial work has been convincingly vindicated in the years since 2017 with increasing videos and eyewitness statements showing that the P320 can and has fired without trigger pulls: "It's quite a moment after five years, to see it on video," as he said in the initial 12 News investigation exposing the issue. "This is the first video where it's obvious; it's clear you can see that it fired and the officer had both his hands full. They were nowhere near the gun. That officer is lucky to be alive. If that round had hit him or someone else, it could have been fatal," Bagnell added. “This is not a hammer-fired gun like we all grew up seeing in movies; it is an advanced, high risk “striker-fired” design, which is very much like a crossbow with an extremely shallow striker foot-sear connection that is subject to gradual or sudden failure due to intertial forces.”
“I’m proud to have helped isolated and ignored law enforcement officers victimized by this product when no else could or would, and when even their own colleagues turned against them. Many other lawyers (Nick Gurney first among them) are advocating on behalf of a growing number of victims.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/special-forces-pistols-1.5897942
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/special-forces-pistols-1.5897942
To date, no mandatory recall has been issued, despite many law enforcement officers and civilians across the country having been shot. It continues to fire on officers and civilians without a trigger pull to this day. He emphasizes that these are not anti-gun cases and do not seek to undermine the rights recognized in the Second Amendment; rather, they are product liability cases resulting from a defective product.
https://geomatrixproductions.com/out-gunning-a-gunmaker/
http://www.news12.com/story/36095322/officer-injured-by-dropped-holstered-gun-sues-gunmaker
https://sofrep.com/98976/dod-evaluation-says-armys-new-sig-sauer-p320-service-pistol-riddled-issues/
http://www.guns.com/2017/08/09/sig-sauer-hit-with-personal-injury-lawsuit-over-p320/
https://www.inquirer.com/business/sig-sauer-guns-septa-ice-misfiring-suits-police-20210227.html
https://www.smbb.com/news-article/septa-is-complying-with-requests-for-evidence-in-2019-incident-on-duty-transit-cops-gun-fired-without-touching-the-weapon/