A federal judge has upheld a $7.5 million jury verdict for a sheriff’s deputy who claimed shotgun breaching rounds severely injured him during a training exercise.
David Hakim was on the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office Special Weapons and Tactics team during a December 2014 training session at an abandoned home. The training involved ammunition known as TKO Breaching Rounds, made by Safariland. According to court documents, officers fire shotgun shells loaded with zinc powder at door locks, hardware and safety chains. Upon impact, the shells are supposed to disintegrate into a fine powder.
Hakim said he was on the first floor of the home when another officer, practicing in the basement, fired between a hinge pin and door. One shell traveled through the door, hit a beam behind the door, deflected through the basement ceiling and struck Hakim’s body armor, deflecting into his spine. He successfully sued Safariland and Defense Technology Corporation of America with a jury awarding him compensatory damages in September 2021.
Edmund Scanlan
| lawyers.justia.com/
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin issued an opinion April 18. Durkin explained one of the central disputed facts during the trial was whether Safariland gave adequate warning the shells would only disintegrate if they hit metal. Safarliand argued the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office knew this fact at least as early as a September 2008 training course on shotgun breaching, which Hakim attended. Hakim contested the contents of that session.
Durkin said the jury ruled in favor of Safariland on Hakim’s claims of manufacturing and design defect, but awarded him $7.5 million in compensatory damages over the failure to warn allegation. Following that, Safariland filed a post-trial motion renewing its request for judgment on the failure to warn claim or, alternatively, to be given a new trial. The company also wanted the damages reduced.
On appeal, Safariland moved to strike Hakim’s affidavits about the lesson plan for the 2008 training session. Durkin agreed, noting Hakim didn’t challenge Safariland’s position during cross-examination or rebuttal arguments. Durkin also wouldn’t “wade into Hakim’s accusations that defense counsel fabricated evidence,” saying Hakim declined to fully raise those concerns during the trial.
However, Durkin said Safariland failed to show why the jury’s verdict should be overturned, noting “the totality of the evidence presented to the jury allowed more than one conclusion as to the appropriateness and efficacy of the warnings” and adding that Safariland didn’t cite anything in its posttrial motions that wasn’t presented for jury consideration.
“The jury heard testimony from many of the officers involved in the training exercise suggesting they believed the breaching rounds would disintegrate upon hitting a hard surface, and heard about warnings to this effect,” Durkin wrote. “There was also evidence that Safariland never explicitly warned users that the TKO breaching charge must hit metal to disintegrate. At the very least, the warnings were not consistent on this point.”
Whether the training where Hakim was injured was conducted safely was a factor the jury could consider, but it also “was entitled to reject the inference that poor planning or execution of the training was 100 percent at fault for Hakim’s injury,” Durkin wrote.
In addition to determining the jury’s verdict was reasonable and supported by evidence, Durkin also denied Safariland’s request for a new trial. He said it was not legally inconsistent for Safariland to prevail on the design and manufacturing defect claims and hadn’t “identified any essential common element found to be proven in one claim but not another.”
Finally, Durkin to declined to undo the jury’s compensatory damage award, writing “it was not irrational,” aligned with the injuries Hakim described during his trial and “there is no indication the jury’s award was based on personal vendetta against Safariland or other inappropriate considerations.”
Hakim has been represented by attorney Edmund J. Scanlan, of Chicago.
Safariland was represented by attorneys Paul V. Esposito, Melinda S. Kollross and William W. Leathem, with the firm of Clausen Miller, of Chicago, and John W. Patton Jr. and Todd M. Porter, of Patton & Ryan, of Chicago.