At a time of heightened awareness of the prevalence of firearms in American society, as there are almost daily news reports about the misuse of guns, there is something almost comforting to realize that one of the worst enemies gun manufacturers have is sometimes . . . other gun manufacturers. A case in point is a dispute that arose between a famous gun maker and an upstart back in the early 2000s.
The legacy gun maker was Colt’s Fire Arms, whose founder, Samuel Colt, had been making guns since the 1850s. In 1872, under contract with the United States Army, Colt’s began manufacturing a six-shot revolver pistol known as the Peacemaker, Single Action Army — a huge innovation in an era when most handguns could fire just one bullet and then had to be reloaded. Colt didn’t invent the revolver, but his improved engineering helped to make revolvers the most popular handguns of the latter nineteenth century.
The upstart was RJG Holdings of Florida, a descendant of a company known as American Western Arms. RJG wanted to manufacture the most accurate replicas of the “first generation” Peacemaker on the market (apparently so that you, too, could go strutting like John Wayne in “Rio Bravo” or “El Dorado” with an authentic-looking Old West sidearm). Colt (by then known as “New Colt Holding Corporation” — “holding companies” apparently being very big among gun makers) sued RJG in 2002, claiming that RJG had tried for years to obtain the right to make these replicas of Colt’s most famous weapon, and when Colt turned them down repeatedly, RJG just went ahead and started making them anyway.
Or as it’s sometimes known — the American Way!
Anyway, Colt, which is located in Hartford, Connecticut filed the lawsuit in Connecticut federal court. It claimed various kinds of unfair competition and infringement on its designs by RJG — what is known in legal circles as “trade dress,” i.e., the characteristics that make a consumer associate a product with a particular company by the way it looks, its color scheme, etc.
In 2004, each side asked the court to rule in its favor. RJG, knowing that the best defense is a good offense, had counter-sued Colt under various legal theories, making such claims as that Colt was misleading the public, or that the legal protection for the designs of Colt’s guns had expired.
The court got somewhat into the weeds over some of these issues. To determine whether the design of the Peacemaker was protected, for example, the court went through an exhaustive (and exhausting) 14-part discussion of the physical characteristics of the gun… and ultimately decided that there were too many facts in dispute for a judge and not a jury to make that decision.
The most amusing part of the ruling, though, concerned whether Colt’s motto — “the gun that won the west” — constituted false advertising. The court chided RJG for “an overly literal interpretation” of Colt’s advertising. The court said the motto “is clearly a form of puffing and not entirely susceptible to proof or disproof,” adding, “If one is inclined to be so literal, an inanimate object, such as a gun, cannot literally win anything…While the use of a revolver or rifle may have helped individuals ‘win the west,’ which single firearm was decisive, if any, is not the sort of question subject to resolution…The statement, much like ‘Energizer Bunny’ going on and on or ‘The Best a Man Can Get’ is a form of puffing, not literal truth.”
In a footnote, the court expanded on its comments, adding after the phrase “win the west” that, “As the saying goes, ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people…’” Whatever validity one may or may not ascribe to that statement, its use in this context does add a new twist.
The court’s ultimate decision, however, was a bit disappointing — “splitting the baby,” to use the technical, legal term. It ruled in favor of Colt on some issues and in favor of RJG on others, but left both sides to continue to pay attorney’s fees as the case crawled toward a possible jury trial…which may still be the most robust method ever devised to convince the two sides of a lawsuit that it’s time for a settlement.
Frank Zotter, Jr. is a Ukiah attorney.
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