Guay v. Sig Sauer, Inc.
| Decision Date | 11 July 2022 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. 20-cv-736-LM |
| Citation | 610 F.Supp.3d 423 |
| Parties | Kyle GUAY v. SIG SAUER, INC. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Hampshire |
Jeff Bagnell, Bagnell Law Office, Westport, CT, Megan E. Douglass, Benjamin T. King, Douglas Leonard & Garvey PC, Concord, NH, for Kyle Guay.
Mark V. Franco, Drummond Woodsum, Portland, ME, Brian Keith Gibson, Robert L. Joyce, Littleton Park Joyce Ughetta & Kelly LLP, Purchase, NY, Kristen E. Dennison, Littleton Park Joyce Ughetta & Kelly LLP, Radnor, PA, for Sig Sauer, Inc.
Plaintiff Kyle Guay brings this products liability case against Sig Sauer, Inc. Guay alleges that his Sig Sauer P320 pistol fired a bullet without a trigger pull when he was attempting to remove the gun from its holster. The bullet struck Guay in the leg.
Sig Sauer moves to exclude Guay's expert witnesses, Peter Villani and Timothy Hicks, both of whom opine about the mechanics of the P320 pistol and its alleged defects. Doc. nos. 26, 27. Contingent on excluding Villani and Hicks, Sig Sauer moves for summary judgment on the ground that Guay cannot carry his burden to prove Sig Sauer sold the gun in an unreasonably dangerous condition. Doc. no. 28. Sig Sauer also argues that Guay cannot show causation. Guay objects.
For the following reasons, the court denies Sig Sauer's motion to exclude Villani (doc. no. 26) in part and grants it in part. The court denies Sig Sauer's motion to exclude Hicks (doc. no. 27), and the court denies Sig Sauer's motion for summary judgment (doc. no. 28).
Federal Rule of Evidence 702 provides the requirements for expert witness testimony:
Based on those requirements, an expert witness's testimony may be challenged on the grounds that the witness is not qualified to give the opinion, the opinion is not based on specialized knowledge, the opinion is not reliable, or the opinion is not relevant. Carrozza v. CVS Pharm., Inc., 992 F.3d 44, 56 (1st Cir. 2021) ; Bogosian v. Mercedes-Benz of N. Am., 104 F.3d 472, 476 (1st Cir. 1997). The proponent of the expert witness bears the burden of showing that the testimony is admissible. See Martínez v. United States, 33 F.4th 20, 24 (1st Cir. 2022).
The judge has a gatekeeping role to ensure that an expert witness's testimony is both reliable and relevant. Id. In carrying out that function, the judge focuses on the process that generated the opinion, not on the opinion itself. López-Ramírez v. Toledo-González, 32 F.4th 87, 94 (1st Cir. 2022) (citing Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 595, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993) ). "There is an important difference between what is unreliable support and what a trier of fact may conclude is insufficient support for an expert's conclusion." Milward v. Acuity Specialty Prods. Grp., Inc., 639 F.3d 11, 15 (1st Cir. 2011) ; López-Ramírez, 32 F.4th at 94. "Vigorous cross-examination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction on the burden of proof are the traditional and appropriate means of attacking shaky but admissible evidence." Daubert, 509 U.S. at 596, 113 S.Ct. 2786.
On the evening of January 28, 2020, Guay was wearing his Sig Sauer P320 gun in a Sig Sauer holster on the right side of his belt while walking his dogs. After the walk, Guay started to remove the holstered gun by pushing down on his belt and pulling up on the holstered gun. The gun fired, and a bullet shot through Guay's right thigh. Guay asserts that he did not pull the gun's trigger. Rather, Guay contends that the gun fired because a defect in its design or manufacture allows it to fire when it is jostled under certain conditions.
Sig Sauer moves to exclude the opinions of Guay's two proposed expert witnesses: Peter Villani and Timothy Hicks. Sig Sauer contends that they are unqualified to render expert opinions and that their opinions are unreliable. Sig Sauer also moves for summary judgment, premised primarily on the exclusion of Guay's expert witnesses. Guay objects to excluding his experts, arguing that they are qualified and that their conclusions rest on reliable foundations. Guay likewise opposes summary judgment. After the motions at issue were fully briefed, the court held a hearing during which both Villani and Hicks testified and were subjected to cross-examination by Sig Sauer.
Villani provided an expert report and a supplemental report in which he identifies design and manufacturing defects in Guay's P320 and other "exemplar" P320s. In his report, Villani concludes that those defects could cause the guns to fire without a trigger pull. Sig Sauer moves to exclude Villani's opinions on the grounds that he is not qualified to give the opinions in his report and that his opinions are not reliable.
In his curriculum vitae, Villani states that from 2001 to the present he has worked for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Police as a primary evidence custodian, senior firearms instructor/armorer, and operations officer with the rank of Major. Villani's duties include detailed examination of the guns used in the department and cleaning the guns once a year. During the Daubert hearing, Villani testified that he also investigated an incident in which a police officer who worked for him was shot after his P320 discharged without a trigger pull.
From 1995 to 1999, Villani managed a shooting range. In that position Villani had a variety of duties, including cleaning and repair of customers’ guns and holding gun safety classes. In that role, Villani also evaluated personal gun collections for consignment sales. Finally, Villani has been certified by Sig Sauer as an "armorer" for several gun models, including the P320. The P320 armorer's course, which was taught by a Sig Sauer employee, required Villani to learn the P320's components in detail and pass a written examination about the P320's components.
For purposes of his first report, Villani examined two "exemplar" P320s and two P320s "in evidence. The two "in evidence" P320s that Villani examined were Guay's gun, which was involved in the incident that is the subject of this case, and a P320 involved in a different incident that is not the subject of this case (the "Schneider P320"). Villani test fired the two "exemplar" guns. He did not test fire the Schneider P320 or Guay's P320.
In his report, Villani reviews what he observed when he examined each gun. He notes the condition of various internal components and other features particular to each gun. Villani explains how he inspected their interior components for wear, alignment, cleanliness, and function; took measurements; and compared components and conditions. Villani also recorded a variety of design and manufacturing defects for each gun.
In particular, Villani observed that some internal components had wear or rounding of their edges, which he described as "rollover." Villani opines that this wear results from insufficient contact between internal parts. In essence, the parts’ surfaces are rough and have excess material on them. Villani opines that the rough surfaces result from the P320's manufacturing process, that is, the parts are "cast" in a "mold injected metal" process rather than "machined." Villani opines that if the parts were machined then they would not wear down in the way he observed. Villani adds that machined parts are "finely finished" which provides "better contact." Doc. no. 26-4 at 3. In short, Villani believes that if the surfaces of these parts were less rough, there would be more surface area in contact between the parts and therefore a lower likelihood that they slip and allow the gun to fire without a trigger pull.
As to Guay's P320, because the gun was "in evidence," Villani's inspection was limited to a "field strip." During his inspection, Villani photographed the gun to show the defects that he found. Similar to the exemplar guns, the first defect Villani found was "rollover" on the striker foot and sear face and marks indicating that the sear and striker foot were not functioning as intended. He also found that the striker foot and striker housing had side to side movement that could cause the striker foot to land differently each time and, in his belief, cause the safety to be disengaged, allowing an unintended discharge.
Additionally, on March 17 and 18, 2021, four P320s that had been involved in unintended discharges, including Guay's P320, were CT1 scanned and photographed. Villani prepared a supplemental report based on those scans and photographs. Doc. no. 26-5. As before, Villani found excessive space and movement, misalignment, and rollover in the internal components, which Villani characterizes as defects. In his supplemental report, Villani states that "[a]fter a careful review of the discovered design and manufacturing defects within all of the Sig Sauer model P-320 pistols that I have personally examined, I can, to a reasonable degree of technical certainty state that the four subject pistols discharged without manipulation of the triggering mechanism." Doc. no. 31-13 at 5, ¶ 21. In his deposition, Villani clarified that he also based his conclusion in part on the condition of Guay's holster and on Guay's own statements that he did not pull the gun's trigger.
Under Rule 702, a...
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