Philadelphia Jury Finds SIG Sauer P320 Defective After Holstered Pistol Fired; $1 Million Stands
After trial: The jury awarded $11 million ($1 million compensatory, $10 million punitive); on June 18, 2025 the trial judge struck the punitive award, leaving $1 million. SIG Sauer said it would appeal the verdict and the plaintiff said he would appeal the punitive ruling.
Won by Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky.
George Abrahams, a U.S. Army veteran and painting contractor, was shot in the right thigh in June 2020 when his holstered SIG Sauer P320 fired. In November 2024 a Philadelphia jury found the pistol defectively designed and the company negligent in selling it, and awarded $1 million in compensatory and $10 million in punitive damages. In June 2025 the trial judge struck the punitive award, leaving the $1 million compensatory verdict and the defect finding in place.
What happened
In June 2020, George Abrahams, a U.S. Army veteran who works as a painting contractor in Philadelphia, put his SIG Sauer P320 pistol in its holster, slipped it into the zippered pocket of his athletic pants and started down the stairs at home. The gun fired while it was still holstered. The bullet went through his upper right thigh and came out above the knee. The wound left him with nerve damage and chronic pain. He later described being in such shock that he could not scream.
Abrahams sued SIG Sauer in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, claiming the P320 was defectively designed. His lawyers, Robert W. Zimmerman and Ryan Hurd, argued that the company knew of the danger and knew of ways to reduce or eliminate it. The P320 has no external manual safety, and its trigger needs less than a quarter inch of movement to fire. Reports cited in the coverage counted at least 80 people injured in alleged unintended discharges of the pistol between 2016 and 2023.
SIG Sauer's defense was that the trigger was pulled by the user's finger or a foreign object in every such case, and that the P320 is among the most tested handguns in recent history. The company also pointed to the conduct of Abrahams himself. After the verdict it noted that jurors had found his own negligence contributed to the accident.
The three-week trial ended on November 20, 2024. The jury found the P320 defectively designed, found SIG Sauer negligent in selling the gun and its holster, and found that the company acted with reckless indifference to the rights of others. It awarded $1 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages. Zimmerman said after the verdict that the firm had been asking SIG Sauer for more than three years to recall and fix the gun. The company said it strongly disagreed and would appeal.
On June 18, 2025, Judge Damaris Garcia struck the entire punitive award, without giving reasons in the coverage reviewed. The compensatory verdict and the jury's finding that the P320 was defectively designed were left untouched. Zimmerman said Abrahams would appeal the loss of the punitive damages. We found no appellate ruling.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.CBS Philadelphia, 'Gunmaker Sig Sauer ordered to pay $11M to Philadelphia man wounded by holstered pistol', Nov. 2024·Archived copy
- 2.Philadelphia Inquirer, 'A Philadelphia man said his P320 pistol discharged unintentionally. A jury awarded him $11 million.', Nov. 22, 2024·Archived copy
- 3.The Legal Intelligencer, 'Phila. Judge Slashes $10 Million Punitive Damages Award From Defective Gun Verdict', June 18, 2025·Archived copy
- 4.Security Management (ASIS), 'Pennsylvania Judge Vacates $10 Million Penalty Against SIG SAUER', June 2025·Archived copy
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