The Sig Sauer P320 lawsuits are a wave of more than 100 product liability cases alleging that the striker-fired pistol can discharge without anyone pulling the trigger. Since 2016, more than 150 people have reported unintended discharges. Two juries have found the P320 defectively designed, a third found a defect but awarded no damages, a class action settlement covering pre-2017 pistols has closed to new claims, and in October 2025 New Jersey became the first state to sue the manufacturer directly. Sig Sauer denies the gun is defective and says it meets every applicable safety standard.
What Plaintiffs Say Is Wrong With the P320
The core allegation is that the P320 can fire on its own during ordinary handling, most often while holstered, being drawn, or carried on the body. Plaintiffs and their experts point to several possible mechanisms: inertial forces from bumps or drops causing the striker to slip past its safety block, flex in the Fire Control Unit shifting the sear-and-striker geometry, and rigid duty holsters pressing on internal components.
A recurring design point in the litigation is that the standard civilian and law enforcement P320 has no external, trigger-mounted safety blade. The M17 and M18 versions sold to the U.S. military include a manual thumb safety that the civilian model lacks. Plaintiffs argue Sig Sauer knew an external safety was warranted and markets the civilian gun as the “Official Sidearm of the U.S. Military” without disclosing the difference. Sig Sauer says the P320 was engineered to meet or exceed ANSI/SAAMI, National Institute of Justice, and military drop-test standards, and that “no evidence has ever emerged to indicate the P320 can fire without a trigger pull.” The company attributes reported incidents to improper handling, inadequate training, or foreign objects contacting the trigger. In a 2023 Maine lawsuit, Sig Sauer acknowledged receiving reports of 350 unintentional P320 shootings between 2016 and 2021.
Jury Verdicts to Date
Lang v. Sig Sauer (Georgia, 2024)
The first jury loss for Sig Sauer came in June 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Robert Lang said his holstered P320, tucked in his waistband in Roswell, Georgia, discharged on December 11, 2018. The bullet tore through his right thigh and exited above his knee. After a two-week trial, the jury found Sig Sauer negligent, found the P320 defectively designed for lacking a tabbed trigger safety, and found the company had failed to warn adequately. It awarded $2,350,963: roughly $1.6 million in past damages, $690,000 in future damages, and about $51,000 in stipulated medical expenses. The judge denied Sig Sauer’s motions for a new trial and to reduce the damages. Sig Sauer has indicated it will appeal.
Abrahams v. Sig Sauer (Pennsylvania, 2024)
In November 2024, a Philadelphia jury awarded $11 million to George Abrahams, an Army veteran and painting contractor. Abrahams said his P320 discharged after he holstered it, placed it in the pocket of his athletic pants, and walked down a flight of stairs; the bullet struck his right thigh. The jury found the pistol defectively designed and found Sig Sauer had shown “reckless indifference to the rights of others,” awarding $1 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages. Judge Damaris Garcia of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas later vacated the $10 million punitive award, though the defect finding stands. Abrahams’s team plans to appeal the punitive ruling; Sig Sauer plans to appeal liability.
Desrosiers v. Sig Sauer (Massachusetts, 2025)
A Boston federal jury delivered a mixed result in the case of Cambridge police officer Jacques Desrosiers, whose P320 discharged in October 2019. Jurors found the pistol defectively designed, found the defect caused his injury, and found Sig Sauer failed to warn adequately. They also found Desrosiers had “voluntarily and unreasonably” used the weapon despite knowing it was “defective and dangerous,” and awarded zero damages.
Colwell v. Sig Sauer (Second Circuit, 2028)
In May 2028, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case of Michael Colwell, a Troy, New York police detective whose holstered P320 discharged during a June 2021 training exercise, injuring his leg. In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court held that a jury could use “common sense” to decide whether an external safety would have prevented the discharge, even though the trial judge had excluded expert testimony on the design. The dissent said the engineering was too complex for jurors to resolve without experts.
Wrongful Death Claims
At least two wrongful death suits have been filed. The most prominent involves Roman Neshin, a 41-year-old Bucks County, Pennsylvania business owner who died on October 1, 2024, after his holstered P320 discharged a bullet into his groin, puncturing his femoral artery. The Bucks County Coroner ruled the death accidental. Investigators found plastic holster fragments embedded in the wound, suggesting the gun fired while at least partially seated in its holster. His widow, Mariya Gomelskaya, filed suit in a Philadelphia court in December 2024. In July 2025, U.S. District Judge Anita Brody ordered the case to proceed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas rather than federal court. An earlier Colorado wrongful death suit tied to a 2018 Christmas party shooting was withdrawn after the gun owner was convicted of criminal negligence.
New Jersey Sues Sig Sauer
On October 16, 2025, New Jersey became the first state to sue Sig Sauer over the P320. Attorney General Matthew Platkin, joined by the state’s Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement Office and the Division of Consumer Affairs, filed the case in New Jersey Superior Court. The complaint alleges violations of the state’s Firearms Industry Public Safety Law and the Consumer Fraud Act, accusing Sig Sauer of selling a pistol with a “well-documented propensity to fire unintentionally” and of “false and deceptive advertising” for marketing the P320 as one that “won’t fire unless you want it to.”
The state cites the April 8, 2023 death of Detective Lieutenant Walter Imbert, a 45-year-old Army veteran and range master for the Orange Police Department, who was killed when his P320 discharged as he prepared to clean it at work. Investigators determined his finger was not on the trigger. New Jersey is seeking a mandatory recall of P320 pistols in the state, an injunction against marketing the gun as safe from unintended discharge, and damages and restitution. The case remains pending.
The 2017 Upgrade Program and the Closed Class Action
In August 2017, Sig Sauer launched a Voluntary Upgrade Program for P320s made before August 8, 2017. The company acknowledged that “through additional testing,” it had confirmed that “usually after multiple drops, at certain angles and conditions, a potential discharge of the firearm may result when dropped,” calling those scenarios rare and outside normal testing. The upgrade replaces the trigger, sear, and striker with lighter components and adds a mechanical disconnector to the slide; subcompact models also get a new grip module. Sig Sauer covers all costs, including two-way shipping, and the program remains open with no expiration date. At launch, roughly 500,000 pistols had shipped to consumers.
A related class action, Hartley v. Sig Sauer, settled with three tiers of relief for owners of pre-August 2017 pistols. Owners who had not experienced a discharge received a transferable lifetime warranty and eligibility for the free upgrade. Owners who had returned a pistol after a discharge and been told it could not be repaired could choose a full refund or a replacement P320. Owners who had been charged for repairs got those costs back. The claim deadline was June 25, 2022, and the claims period has closed. Owners who missed it can still use the upgrade program, but Hartley settlement claims are no longer available.
Law Enforcement Agencies Dropping the P320
At least seven major agencies have discontinued or restricted the P320 after unintended discharges among their own personnel.
- Houston Police Department banned the P320 in 2025 after Officer Richard Fernandez Jr. was shot in the right calf by his holstered pistol while directing traffic at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade on January 20, 2025. He required emergency surgery and has filed a $10 million lawsuit.
- Denver Police Department notified officers in April 2025 that the P320 was “no longer considered safe for duty or backup carry” after its Firearms Unit was able to recreate safety concerns.
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement banned the P320 in a July 9, 2025 memo from Deputy Director Madison Sheahan, and moved to replace it with Glock pistols. Internal data showed 12 unintentional discharges and seven injuries in the 18 months after ICE adopted the P320 in 2019.
- Chicago Police Department decided to discontinue the P320 in April 2025. In October 2025, Federal Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ordered the city to explain how many officers still carried the weapon, writing that any officer with an alternative “should be required immediately to use that alternative weapon.” At the time, 780 officers were still carrying P320s.
- In Washington, the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission, Vancouver Police Department, Clark County Sheriff’s Office, and Pierce County Sheriff’s Department all pulled authorization after 2024 training incidents.
The New Hampshire Liability Shield
In May 2025, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte signed a bill limiting product liability claims against gun manufacturers based on the “absence or presence” of certain safety features, including external mechanical safeties. The measure was introduced as a late-session amendment by Republican State Senator Bill Gannon and bypassed public hearings. Sig Sauer’s vice president of governmental affairs, Bobby Cox, testified in support, saying litigation costs were diverting funds from a company that employs more than 2,000 people in the state. Democratic State Representative David Meuse called the bill a “special exemption” that denies consumers their day in court.
The law does not apply retroactively to the roughly 80 cases already pending against Sig Sauer in New Hampshire, but it bars future claims built on the design choice at the heart of most P320 litigation. Sig Sauer has invoked the statute in motions to sever and transfer existing consolidated cases out of the state; a federal judge has called that argument “premature.” In March 2026, New Hampshire Senate Republicans killed a bill that would have repealed the immunity law. The shield has already pushed new filings elsewhere: in November 2025, the Philadelphia firm Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky filed a mass action for 34 plaintiffs from 23 states in Pennsylvania federal and state courts, shifting away from New Hampshire.
Where Things Stand for New Claims
More than 100 lawsuits are pending in state and federal courts, with Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky serving as lead counsel for many plaintiffs and representing more than 125 claimants as of late 2025. Seventy-six plaintiffs have coordinated their cases before a single federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire. A separate class action was filed in November 2025 in the Western District of Washington by plaintiff Patrick Schreiber, alleging the P320 is defectively designed and that Sig Sauer violated the Washington Consumer Protection Act by concealing the risk of unintended discharge. A 2022 Missouri class action also remains pending.
Two limits are worth knowing. The Hartley class action claims period closed on June 25, 2022, so that settlement is no longer a route for pre-2017 owners who did not file in time; the free upgrade program is still open. And no federal agency has authority to regulate firearm design or force a recall on a gun manufacturer, so even jury findings of defective design do not compel Sig Sauer to change the P320 or pull it from the market. The company continues to sell the pistol and to deny it is defective.