This is a bit off the beaten track to say the very least. Remington, the gun company that made the guns which were used to murder the Sandy Hook victims, 20 children and six adults, four of them teachers, has decided to subpoena everything but the kitchen sink on the victims; report cards, disciplinary actions, attendance records. If you can figure this one out, please call plaintiff’s counsel and explain it to them. VICE News:
“In mid-July, the defense served a subpoena on the Newtown Public School District seeking: ‘Any and all educational records in your possession including but not limited to, application and admission paperwork, attendance records, transcripts, report cards, disciplinary records, correspondence and any and all other educational information and records pertaining to’ each of the five first-graders whose Estates are plaintiffs in this case,” according to the motion filed today that sought to protect the victims’ families from further subpoenas. “There is no conceivable way that these [records] will assist Remington in its defense, and the plaintiffs do not understand why Remington would invade the families’ privacy with such a request. Nonetheless, this personal and private information has been produced to Remington.”
In addition, Remington subpoenaed employment records of four teachers who were killed in the shooting, in which a total of 20 children and six adults died. Some of the parents of the Sandy Hook victims have been suing the weapons manufacturer since 2014, alleging that the gun manufacturer advertised its line of semi-automatic weapons to civilians. Remington previously responded to a discovery request for its internal company communications by producing more than 18,000 unsorted files containing memes, cartoons, and ice bucket challenge videos.
“We have no explanation for why Remington subpoenaed the Newtown Public School District to obtain the kindergarten and first grade academic, attendance and disciplinary records of these five school children,” Josh Koskoff, one of the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook parents, told Motherboard. “The records cannot possibly excuse Remington’s egregious marketing conduct, or be of any assistance in estimating the catastrophic damages in this case. The only relevant part of their attendance records is that they were at their desks on December 14, 2012.”
I’ve heard of fishing expeditions, but this is nuts. What do they hope to find in the disciplinary records of first-graders? Johnny was put on a time out and not allowed to go out for recess, and this means what exactly? That he deserved to get shot? Or the same with the teachers. What are they looking for? Ms. Jones called in sick but we can prove she was having an affair with a married man those days. So she deserved to get shot? I have no idea, but as stated, neither does Plaintiff’s counsel. All they know is that this is ridiculous and insult has just been added to injury.
The obvious answer is anything to stall for time. I hope that when this case gets done that Remington loses and pays gobs in attorneys fees. That’s the only justice to be expected here.
Yeah, it’s pretty much just a stall tactic. Remington obviously has deep pockets and can afford to keep the plaintiffs tied up with BS move after BS move hoping the plaintiffs will drop the suit because they’ve run out of money to keep paying their lawyers. It doesn’t hurt that discouraging the Sandy Hook victims’ families into dropping their more-than-justified suit will likely prove either to discourage other victims and their families from bringing their own suits or to push them into dropping whatever suits they’ve got running through the system.
More Repuke projection. Turn the “blame the victim on its head.” Shameless.
Have the Remington people no shame?
A bullying strategy? Send the message “if you go down this road we will make everything in your life public.” The discipline records of kindergartners are not going to give them any dirt, but for plaintiffs who maybe have things in their life they don’t want the whole world to know, this sends a message that Remington will go to any lengths to protect themselves.
I mean…what if someone had an ex who hated them and thought they were a scheming liar. (I don’t, lol, that’s not projection, or whatever…but plenty of people do). They might be worried that Remington would bring them into the case to perform character assassination, and make that person look like an anti-gun advocate who waited their whole life to persecute the gun maker.
There are plenty of ways the powerful can make pursuing justice seem like it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
I hope the courts stomp on this request, since it clearly isn’t intended to prove anything. The dead kids aren’t on trial.