Federal judge issues key ruling against gun maker Sig Sauer in widow's lawsuit

A lawsuit filed by a widow against weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer accusing it of being responsible for the death of her husband will continue in state court, a federal judge ruled this week.

On Monday, Judge Anita Brody of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania sent the matter back to where it started, the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia County. Brody rejected Sig Sauer’s argument that the case should have been heard in federal court due to widow Mariya Gomelskaya being from Pennsylvania. The company is based in New Hampshire and incorporated in Delaware.

Gomelskaya had pushed to send the case back to state court due to the co-defendant, federally licensed firearm dealer Spot4Guns, being based in Pennsylvania. Sig Sauer argued that Spot4Guns only acted as a middle man between Gomelskaya’s husband, Roman Neshin, and a Texas-based online seller, and should not have been sued in the first place. Sig Sauer claimed the widow only included Spot4Guns as a defendant to keep the case out of federal court.

“Parsing Sig Sauer’s arguments would require the Court to cross into forbidden territory: ‘an improper decision on the merits’ of Gomelskaya’s strict liability claim against Spot4Guns,” Brody wrote, granting the widow’s request to send the case back to state court.

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Gomelskaya filed the case after her husband, 41-year-old Roman Neshin, was “found dead ‘with a single gunshot wound to (the) right groin’ and ‘plastic shrapnel from the holster … inside his pants’” Oct. 1, 2024, court documents said. She claims the gun fired unintentionally as a result of “defective components and/or the lack of necessary safety features.

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“His October 1 shooting death – caused when his Sig Sauer P320 pistol suddenly fired a single bullet through its holster and into his right groin – and is now the latest P320 unintended shooting to result in a lawsuit,” the law firm Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, which reprepsents Gomelskaya, said in a 2024 statement.

The firm says it represents “more than 100 P320 victims injured by Sig Sauer’s first striker-fired (in contrast to a traditional hammer) pistol” and alleges that “Sig Sauer is the only gunmaker to make a mass-produced sidearm that lacks an external safety to guard against unintended discharges.”