A federal jury in Boston found that the Sig Sauer P320 pistol carried by a Cambridge police officer was defectively designed. It found that the defect caused his injuries when the gun fired in the waistband of his pants. He still recovers nothing.
On September 9, 2026, U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris closed out the last claim in the case, a consumer protection count under Chapter 93A, and entered judgment for Sig Sauer. The reason is a Massachusetts rule most people have never heard of, and it is all or nothing.
What happened to Officer Desrosiers
Jacques Desrosiers is a Cambridge police officer. On October 10, 2019, according to the ruling and his complaint, he was returning to his office from lunch with his department-issued P320 tucked into the waistband of his pants when it discharged. He said he never touched the trigger and that nothing else did. Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, summarizing the complaint, reported that the round struck his groin and left inner thigh and exited through his right knee.
He and his wife, Yolette L. Desrosiers, sued the manufacturer, Sig Sauer, Inc., in federal court in 2022 (Desrosiers v. Sig Sauer, Inc., No. 22-cv-11674-PBS, D. Mass.). The complaint alleged a defective trigger design and alleged that Sig Sauer had represented that the P320 would never fire without a trigger pull despite a history of reported unintended discharges. Those allegations were the plaintiffs’ framing. What the jury actually decided is below.
What the jury found
After a 12-day trial in July 2025 on claims for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability and loss of consortium, and several days of deliberation, the jury returned findings that point in opposite directions.
- Defective design: yes. Judge Saris, adopting the verdict, described the defect this way: the pistol sold to the Cambridge Police Department “had a relatively short and light trigger pull but lacked either a thumb safety or a tabbed trigger,” creating “an unreasonable risk of an unintentional discharge if the trigger came into contact with a finger or a foreign object.”
- The design defect caused the injury: yes. Had the gun had a thumb safety or a tabbed trigger, the court wrote, “it would not have discharged unintentionally on the occasion in question.”
- Failure to warn: yes, but it did not cause the injury. Sig Sauer failed to adequately warn the department about the trigger, the striker and the discharge risk. That failure made no difference, the jury found, because the department “wanted to purchase a duty weapon with a smooth trigger pull and no thumb safety or tabbed trigger.”
- The Correia defense: proven. And that ended the warranty claim.
The Correia defense, and why it is all or nothing
Massachusetts has no separate cause of action called strict products liability. Product defect claims run through the implied warranty of merchantability in the Uniform Commercial Code, G.L. c. 106, §§ 2-314 to 2-318. In Correia v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 388 Mass. 342 (1983), the Supreme Judicial Court described that warranty liability as “congruent in nearly all respects” with the strict liability rule of Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A.
Because warranty liability does not depend on the seller’s fault, the SJC in Correia refused to let a manufacturer reduce damages by pointing to the ordinary carelessness of the user. It held that the comparative negligence statute, G.L. c. 231, § 85, does not change that. Ordinary negligence by the user is simply not a defense to a warranty claim.
What is a defense is narrower and far more powerful. The user’s negligence “does not prevent recovery except when he unreasonably uses a product that he knows to be defective and dangerous.” Correia, 388 Mass. at 356, as quoted in Haglund v. Philip Morris, Inc., 446 Mass. 741 (2006). The manufacturer must prove three things:
- the plaintiff subjectively knew the product was defective and dangerous;
- despite that knowledge, the plaintiff’s use of it was objectively unreasonable; and
- the plaintiff’s conduct was a cause of the injury.
There is no apportionment. A plaintiff who is 10 percent at fault in a negligence case loses 10 percent of the award. A plaintiff who meets all three Correia elements in a warranty case loses the entire warranty claim, however defective the product.
That is how a jury can find a defective design that caused the injury and still return a defense verdict. Those findings are not in conflict. The defense accepts the defect and the causation and asks a different question: did this particular user know the danger and act unreasonably anyway?
How Sig Sauer proved it
Judge Saris pointed to the officer’s own testimony. It “makes clear that he was aware of the features of the P320 pistol that rendered it defective and dangerous, that he acted unreasonably in sticking his P320 pistol in the waistband of his pants in violation of CPD policy, and that this unreasonable action resulted in his injuries.”
Each piece maps onto an element. Knowledge came from what a trained officer knew about his duty weapon’s trigger. Unreasonable use came from carrying it in a waistband contrary to department policy, rather than in a holster that covers the trigger. Causation came from the fact that the discharge happened in the waistband.
A Boston products liability defense lawyer told Lawyers Weekly that the officer’s “bad facts” gave the judge a “foothold,” and that her ruling explains why those facts were particular to this officer and might apply differently to another user. That point matters to anyone reading this as a general verdict on the P320. It is not. The jury’s defect finding stands, and the Correia defense turned on this plaintiff’s knowledge and conduct.
The 93A question no court had answered
The Desrosiers also sued under G.L. c. 93A, the consumer protection statute. In federal court a 93A claim is decided by the judge, not the jury, and the judge “is not bound by a jury’s verdict on parallel common law claims,” though she may adopt it. Judge Saris adopted the jury’s findings in full as “amply supported by the evidence presented at trial.”
The harder question was legal. Does the Correia defense, which is a warranty doctrine, also bar a 93A claim? The court wrote that the parties cited no case directly addressing it “and the Court has found none.”
Saris split the 93A claim in two.
- The design theory. The SJC held in Iannacchino v. Ford Motor Co., 451 Mass. 623 (2008), that when warranty and 93A claims arise from “the same . . . theory of injury and the same set of alleged facts, they should survive or fail under the same analysis.” A 93A theory built on the defective design of the pistol rests on the same injury and facts as the warranty claim. Sitting in diversity, the federal court must predict how the SJC would rule, and Saris predicted “that the SJC would hold that under these circumstances the Correia defense is applicable to the Chapter 93A claim.”
- The marketing theory. The plaintiffs also argued Sig Sauer deceptively marketed and sold the pistol to the department. Every 93A claim requires causation. The jury had already found that the failure to warn did not cause the injury because the department wanted exactly this trigger configuration. The plaintiffs offered additional marketing evidence for the 93A count but did not explain how it would change that causation finding. So that theory failed too.
Judgment entered for Sig Sauer the same day.
Why this ruling reaches beyond one officer
Federal predictions of state law do not bind Massachusetts courts. But until the SJC speaks, this is the only reasoned decision holding that the Correia defense carries over to a 93A claim built on a product defect. Manufacturers defending warranty and 93A claims together will cite it.
The practical effect is significant. Chapter 93A is attractive to injured plaintiffs because it allows multiple damages for knowing or willful violations and an award of attorney’s fees. If a Correia finding defeats the warranty count and the 93A count together, the defense has one path to win both.
There is a limit built into the reasoning. It applies “under these circumstances,” where the 93A theory rests on the same facts as the warranty theory. A 93A claim built on different conduct, such as a misrepresentation that did cause the injury, would not fall automatically.
What happens next
Final judgment entered September 9, 2026. In a federal civil case, a notice of appeal is generally due 30 days after entry of judgment. Any appeal would go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which could decide the 93A question itself or certify it to the SJC. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Samuel A. Haaz of Philadelphia, declined to comment to Lawyers Weekly. Sig Sauer’s counsel did not respond to that publication.
Frequently asked questions
Did the jury find the Sig Sauer P320 defective?
Yes. The jury found the P320 sold to the Cambridge Police Department was defectively designed because it had a relatively short, light trigger pull without a thumb safety or tabbed trigger, and that the defect caused the officer’s injuries. The judge adopted those findings.
Then why did the officer get nothing?
Because the jury also found Sig Sauer proved the Correia defense: the officer knew of the dangerous features, used the gun unreasonably by carrying it in his waistband against department policy, and that conduct caused the injury. In Massachusetts that defense bars a warranty claim completely. There is no reduction by percentage.
Is the Correia defense the same as comparative negligence?
No. The SJC held in Correia that the comparative negligence statute does not apply to breach of warranty claims. Ordinary carelessness by the user is not a defense at all. Only knowing, unreasonable use of a product the user knows is defective and dangerous bars recovery, and it bars it entirely.
Does this ruling apply to other P320 lawsuits?
Not automatically. The defense verdict turned on this officer’s own knowledge and conduct. The judge’s prediction that the Correia defense reaches a parallel 93A claim is persuasive authority, but it does not bind Massachusetts state courts, and the SJC has not decided the question.
Can the plaintiffs appeal?
Yes. A notice of appeal in a federal civil case is generally due within 30 days of entry of judgment, which entered September 9, 2026. An appeal would go to the First Circuit.
Sources: Judge Saris’s order of September 9, 2026 (Doc. 214) and the docket in Desrosiers v. Sig Sauer, Inc., No. 22-cv-11674-PBS (D. Mass.), read on CourtListener’s RECAP archive; the jury’s findings and the judge’s reasoning are quoted from that order. The injury description, the complaint’s allegations and the attorney comments are from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, September 24, 2026. Citations verified: Correia v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 388 Mass. 342 (1983); Haglund v. Philip Morris, Inc., 446 Mass. 741 (2006); Iannacchino v. Ford Motor Co., 451 Mass. 623 (2008); opinion texts read. We have not read the trial transcript or the jury verdict form, which is a scanned image. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.