court enjoins lawyer from using exaggerated/distorted animation of misfiring gun in advertising

Sig Sauer, Inc. v. Jeffrey S. Bagnell, Esq., LLC, No. 3:22-cv-00885 (VAB), 2026 WL 867181 (D. Conn. Mar. 20, 2026)

Bagnell, a lawyer, commissioned a graphics company to create an animation purporting to show how a P320 pistol could misfire absent a trigger pull, known as an “uncommanded discharge.” He later posted that animation to YouTube and published it on his firm’s website; he represents plaintiffs who claim that they have been injured by uncommanded discharges from P320s.

The court granted a permanent injunction against Bagnell’s advertising use, though cautioning that the issue here was not “whether the P320 pistol can misfire or undergo uncommanded discharges, or whether that issue should properly be the subject of litigation elsewhere, or public commentary anywhere.”

Commercial advertising or promotion: Lawyer advertising is commercial speech, and the animation was made for the purpose of influencing potential clients. It was available online. Even if it also was attempting to raise awareness about a public safety concern, “[a]dvertisers should not be permitted to immunize false or misleading product information from government regulation simply by including references to public issues.”

Falsity:

The P320 is a striker-fired pistol, meaning that a pull of the trigger initiates a sequence of internal components to move, culminating in the releasing of a compressed spring, which drives a pin forward to impact the cartridge, causing the gun to fire. The Animation, which is approximately five minutes long, claims to show how vibrations or sudden movements could cause the P320 to fire absent a trigger pull.

The animation opens with a written message that the P320 contains a “mechanism of failure,” “suggesting that the following sequence is that mechanism.” It then depicts a CT scan of a P320 before moving into fully animated renderings of the internal components of the firearm combined with text guidance that it is possible for the P320 to have a “defective discharge” with “no trigger pull.”

The court found that Sig Sauer demonstrated that it would not be possible for the P320 to have the “mechanism of failure” specifically depicted in the video, and identified five literally false statements within the video about specific components of the pistol.

First, the video falsely depicts malformed versions of two P320 components, the sear and the striker foot, as having “inset surfaces,” which could lead to an unsafe “rollover condition.” Sig Sauer’s expert witness demonstrated that both components are flat with straight edges, making “rollover” impossible.

The animation showed a lumpy striker foot based on a photo that the lawyer knew depicted grease buildup. [Though knowledge isn’t required.]

Second, the video falsely depicts the slide’s ability to move up away from the frame, allowing the striker foot to walk up off the sear and fire without a trigger pull. This wasn’t physically possible: two steel parts—the slide and frame rail—merged into each other in an obscured part of the video. Yellow lines show the location of the slide channel, and a red box shows the location of the rail: An accurate depiction would have the red box sitting inside the two yellow lines.

Third, there were key differences between the striker’s so-called safety notch depicted in the video and the actual P320 striker safety notch, which is angled and undercut:

Although this portrayal allowed them to claim that the safety lock could slip over the safety notch to result in an uncommanded discharge, “the physical geometry of the components prevents this from occurring.” The safety notch as depicted in the video is 50% shorter than the actual component, adding credibility to the otherwise inaccurate claim that the lock could slide past the notch.

Fourth, the safety lock appeared less stable in the video than it is in reality: the video showed a bulbous, rounded appearance fitting loosely against the striker, while the real striker safety lock has flat edges and is tightly fitted against the striker.

The video falsely represents the dimensions of the striker foot and striker housing by depicting “[e]xcessive space” between the two components.

These false claims “distort the firearm’s components and safety features to support a claim that sudden impact or vibration leads to unintentional discharge.”

Materiality: A firearm’s safety to its bearer is plainly an “inherent quality or characteristic” and “likely to influence purchasers,” as YouTube comments like “Should I stop carrying my P320?” and “This is definitely plausible and very well described ... BTW I own a Sig M18 with a safety” showed.

Defendants didn’t rebut the resulting presumption of irreparable harm, even if Sig Sauer couldn’t show lost sales. The video was viewed as many as 37,000 times on YouTube over the seven-month period before it was taken down, and at least 80,000 times on another website. For injunctive relief, that was enough. First Amendment concerns were minimal because this was a post-trial order dealing with commercial speech, not a prior restraint.

Preventing use of the video for advertising purposes “does nothing to prevent the Defendants from continuing to practice law, represent plaintiffs against Sig Sauer, publicly express opinions about Sig Sauer or its products, or using even this version of the Animation in the context of other litigation.” The court took no position on whether the animation would be admissible in a tort case and suggested that its decision was narrow and its injunction should not “be construed to affect the ability of the Defendants to use any image, take any position, or make any argument to a court in any other litigation.”