PROPOSED SETTLEMENT IN TAURUS DEFECTIVE GUN LAWSUIT

Law Shield would like to alert our members who own certain Taurus pistols that gun maker Forjas Taurus SA has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit in which it is claimed that some Taurus handgun safeties, even when engaged, may allow the gun to fire if it is dropped.

Safeties on several PT-series pistols (shown is a PT-145 Millennium) were alleged to be faulty in a class-action lawsuit filed in Florida. A proposed settlement of up to $30 million has been submitted to a district court for approval.

After reviewing court documents in Carter v. Forjas Taurus SA et al. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, we’ve learned that as many as 200,000 guns may be subject to the Taurus defective-firearm class-action lawsuit.

The affected pistols are:

PT-111 Millennium

PT-132 Millennium

PT-138 Millennium

PT-140 Millennium

PT-145 Millennium

PT-745 Millennium

PT-609

PT-640

PT-24/7

The settlement does not include Taurus Millennium G2 model pistols, according to the proposed settlement terms.

The parties recently filed a joint motion asking for preliminary approval of the class action settlement in the Florida federal court.

The case stems from an incident in which Chris Carter, a deputy for the Scott County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Department, dropped his Taurus handgun during a pursuit and it discharged even though the safety was engaged. It is alleged that Taurus was aware of this defect in their handguns since 2007.

While Taurus continues to deny any wrongdoing, the company has agreed to pay Class Members up to $200 for pistols that were returned, in addition to an enhanced lifetime warranty and training for the firearms. The minimum that class members will receive is $150. The proposed settlement would cover repairs of up to 200,000 handguns at $150 each, up to the “aggregate cap” of $30 million.

Taurus will also pay $9 million in attorneys’ fees.

The lawyers and law firms of Bailey & Glasser LLP and Morris, Haynes, Wheeles, Knowles & Nelson represent current owners of the pistol. As “Class Counsel,” they negotiated on behalf of Carter to have the Brazilian gun manufacturer provide owners of the named handguns (“class members”) extended warranties, training and $30 million to settle the allegations made in the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, the named Taurus models may “contain a drop-fire defect that may cause the pistols to fire when dropped from a normal height, and a false safety defect which allows the pistols to unintentionally fire even when the manual safety lever in in the ‘on’ or ‘safe’ position and the trigger moves rearward.”

If you own one of the affected models, would you continue to carry it until you could get it repaired?

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