Public Justice has posted more than 133,000 previously-sealed Remington documents available to the public on a new website — www.remingtondocuments.com.
The documents show the company knew for decades the trigger in the Remington Model 700 — the most popular bolt-action rifle in America — and a dozen other Remington models could fire when no one pulled it.
“Remington denied that fact — and still denies it — hid the truth, and kept selling the rifles — and a result, hundreds of people were maimed or killed — and millions are still at risk,” said Arthur Bryant of Public Justice.
In December 2015, CNBC published an investigative report and aired a one-hour special, Remington Under Fire: The Reckoning, based in part on some of these documents. Public Justice’s new Remington Rifle Trigger Defect Documents website is making them public so people who own these rifles can protect themselves, their loved ones, and others.
Over 7.5 million Remington 700 and other rifles with this defective trigger are now in gun owners’ hands.
A proposed settlement in Pollard v. Remington Arms, a national class action in federal court in Kansas City, MO, would provide free trigger replacements to all owners of Remington Model 700, Seven, Sportsman 78, 673, 710, 715, and 770 rifles who file claims.
Everyone who owns one or more of these rifles should stop using them and submit a claim for each rifle, Bryant said.
Bryant said that proposed class members should file claims as soon as possible.
They have until November 18, 2016, to opt out of the proposed settlement or object to it.
A hearing on whether to approve the proposed settlement is scheduled for February 15, 2017.
Public Justice won public access to the documents — and all of the documents in all lawsuits ever filed against Remington over these defective triggers — with the help of the plaintiffs’ lawyers in Pollard v. Remington Arms.
The documents were sought by Public Justice, in part, so Richard Barber of Montana — an NRA member and avid sportsman whose 9-year-old son, Gus Barber, was shot and killed when a Remington 700 fired without a trigger pull in 2000 — could avoid Remington’s threat to sue him for contempt of court if he disclosed what he knew about the trigger’s defects.