Nine families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacred have reached an agreement with the maker of the assault weapon.
The $73 million settlement seems to be the largest of its kind ever between a gun manufacturer and relatives of a mass shooting, the New York Times says.
The paper adds: “It also represents a significant setback to the firearm industry because the lawsuit, by employing a novel strategy, pierced the vast shield enshrined in federal law protecting gun companies from litigation.”
Josh Koskoff
The lead lawyer for the victims’ families — 5 children and 4 adults — is Josh Koskoff. The 1984 Staples High School graduate — and still a Westport resident — practices with Bridgeport-based Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder.
The Times explains:
The families contended that Remington, the gun maker, violated state consumer law by promoting the weapon in a way that appealed to so-called couch commandoes and troubled young men like the gunman who stormed into the elementary school on Dec. 14, 2012, killing 20 first graders and six adults in a spray of gunfire.
Koskoff said: “These 9 families have shared a single goal from the very beginning: to do whatever they could to help prevent the next Sandy Hook. It is hard to imagine an outcome that better accomplishes that goal.”
(Click here for the full New York Times article. In 2014, Koskoff appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to discuss the lawsuit he’d just filed. Click here for that story.)