Which made both the maker and end user negligent. Neither of them intended for the discharge to occur, but their failures to perform due diligence lead to a completely and totally avoidable incident that resulted in injury but could have easily ended in death.I agree.
I disagree. I have a definite issue with the idea that any unintended discharge can be eventually traced back to negligence. I do not believe that this is a case of user negligence. It was a defective product.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
Negligence is defined as failing to take the proper care in doing something. You are blindly ignoring the fact that negligence isn't automatically criminal. As a matter of fact, 90% of negligence cases are civil in nature. Basically if your actions, or inaction, are significantly different than what a reasonable individual would do in a similar situation... you are being negligent. So as per your own post, the "victim" is in fact technically negligent for not following gun community SOP. In addition to that, it was a CUSTOM holster. It was not a commercially produced product that would fall under standard liability laws and testing/certification processes. Here's an example. If I pay Steve to fabricate a lift kit for my truck, then I slap it on in my driveway and take off but it makes a hard left in to the neighbor's house... I'm negligent because I took a custom ordered, one-off piece of kit that isn't avaliable to anyone else and added it to my perfectly functioning and reasonably safe piece of equipment and it IMMEDIATELY malfunctioned causing injury to another person or property because I failed to take reasonable care to ensure it's functionality. Even if Steve is a reputable lift kit manufacturer, because I took on the responsibility of applying it to my vehicle, I am negligent.No I wouldn't. But in any other industry would we be assigning Negligence to the person who received a defective product? If a person takes their car in for repair and the mechanic screws up and it leaks CO into the cab, is the owner negligent because he didn't test for carbon monoxide? If a person buys a defective microwave oven and it leaks RF so bad that it stops someone's pacemaker is the consumer Negligent because he didn't do an RF test? Is there any other product which someone could buy that the purchaser would be considered Negligent if they used it In Good Faith, but product was defective? Of course not. The purchaser of a product has a Reasonable Expectation that the product will perform within specs and is not defective. The user is not Negligent if they receive a defective product and use it In Good Faith.
In the "gun community" we take safety and personal responsibility incredibly serious, with good reason. We are always under attack by gun prohibitionists and we know the worst outcomes that could happen. Most of us would "dry fit" the gun first, taking additional cautions beyond what we normally would for almost any other product; not because failing to do so makes us Negligent, but out of a well-earned abundance of caution.
So, yes, calling this event Negligence on the part of the user is, well, wrong. Could this person have done something to (maybe) find the issue ahead of time? Yes. Was it Negligent? No, at least not in any legal or generally moral sense of the word.
That said, again, as I pointed out already, even if it's not negligent to fail to do so, take extra caution with your holsters. This person wasn't technically Negligent but this person did suffer a negative outcome, and could have suffered worse, which could have been avoided with what is considered SOP by many in the "gun community."
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
Your reasoning kind of loses steam when the police investigation did in fact discover the defect and did manage to reproduce the same result of the weapon being discharged due to contact with the holster on several occasions.Let's say this person did dry test it first. This particular issue could easily not be exposed with an empty gun- without something in there to go bang when holstered, how would the person be able to tell?
I read the updates and I still stand by it being the users ND. The story is changing. If an on scene officer was able to recreate the conditions that caused ND while still on scene, that's not an intermittent issue. If the holster was so obviously overmolded and deformed in to the trigger guard, it's an ND due to lack of proper inspection.Turns out the person did actually dry fit. The issue is either intermittent or the person could not detect the issue. In any case, it appears that this person did, in fact, do the due diligence.
That aside, I stand by my original statement, a consumer using a product in good faith is not negligent.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
That's not in question at all, but the burden of where 51% of the negligence lies will determine how that question is answered in court.Either way ND or UD. It was the holster makers faulty product. He should be responsible for damages. Tell your friend to get a lawyer.
And again you keep defaulting to services performed by licensed professionals in licensed or certified facilities, not custom ordered products tailored to user specific equipment applied and/or installed by the user and not a professional installer...I have a friend who's mother took her car in to get the tires rotated. On the way back home afterwards, she felt a strong vibration from the front and called the shop who told her that it it continues that she should bring it back in. She turned around and on the way back, the front passenger side wheel literally came off. There was damage to the vehicle and the city street. Seems that the shop had forgotten to put the lug nuts back on that wheel. This was an incident that she could have prevented if she had immediately pulled over and inspected the wheels, or inspected the wheels before she left the shop; you know, literally "kicked the tires." But she was operating on Good Faith that the shop had performed their job appropriately. The fact that she could have found the issue herself fairly easily does not make her negligent in any way, not even contributorily.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
That's directly from the OP.The trigger pocket was over-molded and forced in so far that when the firearm is inserted into the holster, the kydex indentation actually catches on the trigger, effectively pulling the trigger. The officer on scene eventually demonstrated this to this person.
Well I was half expecting it to be you because we all know most stories about a friend falling victim to their own actions is usually the story teller.I think this current disagreement revolves around what I would call "best practices" and "failure to do so is negligence." They're not the same.
(Snip)
BTW, I'm a little tired of using "this person" to keep this person's anonymity. Going forward, I'll use the English Language default when gender is not known: "he."
No... man... no...I say we call him BOB!!
🖕
Because you're a good dude, out here trying to prevent negligent discharges by reminding people to properly inspect their gear before they use it....It sounds like a reason for me to make a thread telling people the story and cautioning them to be extra careful with kydex holsters.
This person purchased a kydex holster custom made for this person's Sig P365XL from a local maker.
Could be he hand formed the trigger area with a heat gun and used too much heat and it sagged before it cooled enough.He probably didn't wrap the gun before he formed it
I know guys that do final fit and touch up after they unwrap...Thats why you wrap them. No sag.
