Remington Offers 9 Families of Sandy Hook Victims $3.7 Million Each to Settle Lawsuit

Gun manufacturer Remington offered $3.7 million each to nine families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims who filed a lawsuit against the company, the Associated Press reported. The offers totaled nearly $33 million and were filed late Tuesday in Connecticut's Waterbury Superior Court.

Then 20-year-old Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle from the manufacturer to kill his mother, 20 first graders, six teachers and then himself in December of 2012, the Associated Press reported. The lawsuit said that Remington shouldn't have been selling a weapon of that caliber to the public, and the company marketed the gun to young, at-risk males.

The families who filed the lawsuit said their goal was to prevent more mass shootings in the future, the Associated Press reported. Lawyers for the families said they are contemplating the settlement offer.

In the years since the shooting, Remington, the oldest gunmaker in the U.S., has sought bankruptcy protection twice. The company first filed for protection in 2018 after numerous lawsuits and restricted retail sales on its guns caused it to struggle financially, the Associated Press reported.

It exited court protection in the same year and then filed again in July of 2020 for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Northern District of Alabama, per the Associated Press. In the filing, Remington listed between $100 million and $500 million in assets and liabilities, as well as between 1,000 and 5,000 creditors.

It was also in 2020 that families of the Sandy Hook victims were given access to the gunman's computer so they could search for any evidence that guns were marketed to him in advertisements, the Associated Press reported.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

A Hartford lawyer representing Remington, James Rotondo, declined to comment Wednesday.

One of the plaintiffs, Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son Dylan died in the shooting, said Wednesday that the families need to talk with their lawyers about the settlement offers and declined further comment.

Joshua Koskoff, an attorney for the families, said the settlements were offered by two of Remington's insurers.

"Ironshore and James River ... deserve credit for now realizing that promoting the use of AR-15s as weapons of war to civilians is indefensible. Ensuring this kind of conduct is an unprofitable and untenable business model," Koskoff said in a statement.

Remington's lawyers have denied the lawsuit's allegations.

Remington, based in Madison, North Carolina, filed for bankruptcy last year for the second time in two years. Its assets were later sold off to several companies.