A Philadelphia man said his P320 pistol discharged unintentionally. A jury awarded him $11 million.
George Abrahams, of Northwest Philadelphia, alleged in court filings that his P320 pistol discharged in 2020 while holstered in his pocket.
A Philadelphia jury found this week that a design flaw in SIG Sauer’s P320 pistol was responsible for an accidental gun discharge that injured a Philadelphia man, awarding him $11 million.
George Abrahams was wounded in his Northwest Philadelphia home in June 2020 when his P320 gun discharged while it was holstered in his pocket, according to court records. The bullet pierced Abrahams’ upper right thigh and exited above his right knee, resulting in nerve damage that caused lasting pain.
“I was in so much shock that I couldn’t even scream,” the Army veteran and painting contractor told The Inquirer in 2022.
That year, he sued the New Hampshire-based gunmaker in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, alleging that the gun’s design made it all but inevitable that the pistol would fire at some point without anyone pulling the trigger.
SIG Sauer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a public statement, the company said it plans to appeal.
“We strongly disagree with the verdict in this unintended discharge lawsuit,” the gunmaker said in a statement.
» READ MORE: What happened when a SEPTA officer’s handgun spontaneously fired in Philly’s Suburban Station
Abrahams is one of 100 people represented by the Philadelphia-based Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky firm in P320 product liability cases, which also include a local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who was injured in an unintentional discharge.
The P320 has a history of alleged accidental discharges. At least 80 people were wounded because of what they say were unintentional P320 firings between 2016 and 2023, according to a 2023 investigation by the Washington Post and the Trace. SEPTA stopped using the P320 after the gun carried by one of its officers spontaneously fired inside Suburban Station in 2019.
The problem with the gun is that it doesn’t include any external safety mechanism, said Robert Zimmerman, the Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky attorney representing Abrahams. And the P320′s trigger is one of the most sensitive on the market, requiring less than a quarter-inch of movement to engage the firearm.
“They knew of this danger, they knew of ways to mitigate or all together prevent this risk,” Zimmerman said. “But they left their own customers who are police officers and law-abiding citizens at risk.”
In court records, SIG Sauer denied that the pistol can fire without the trigger being pulled.
“SIG further responds that in all instances where there is a claim a P320 pistol discharged without a trigger pull, the trigger was pulled inadvertently by the user’s finger or a foreign object,” the company said in legal filings.
The jury in the Abrahams case found that SIG Saur gun was flawed and awarded Abrahams $1 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages, meant to punish the company for “reckless indifference” to the safety of the product.
The verdict is the second against SIG Saur won by the Philly-based law firm. A federal jury in Georgia hit the gunmaker with a $2.3 million verdict in June. And Zimmerman said that more trials are coming.
“SIG Sauer marketed that this gun won’t fire unless you want it to … but they knew it would. And then they saw that happen in the real world time and time again,” the attorney said.