In Hudson Manufacturing's 54-page bankruptcy filing outlining more than $11.6m in liabilities, there's a section titled Property the Debtor Holds or Controls That the Debtor Does Not Own.

That section lists 79 warranty items. Curiously, every one of the items lists a value of $0. It's unclear how Hudson rendered pistols it priced at $1150 to a state of worthlessness, but part of the answer was heard in a bankruptcy hearing held April 18th.

In a small conference room in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Billie “Cy” and Lauren Hudson, the husband and wife co-owners of Hudson Manufacturing answered questions on a range of bankruptcy-related topics posed by the company's court-appointed, interim trustee James Studensky. The pair are shown entering the courthouse with their bankruptcy attorney, Jennifer Francine Wertz, left. One line of the trustee's questions related to the warranty pistols.

While the document shows 79 articles, the Hudson's said it had 86 pistols in for warranty at the time the company ceased operation.

“I believe you told me that most of those have been basically broken down into their component pieces,” asked Studensky.

“Yes, I don’t know how much detail you want me to go into of our standard operating procedure,” answered Hudson. “But, since it was our first production run, we wanted to completely evaluate all possible problems and fix all possible problems. So they're broken down, inspected, and put in queue after inventory to build back up and send out.”

Studensky then reiterated the question and asked if they were talking about a “complete disassembly of the firearm,” to which Hudson affirmed.

This makes the guns nearly impossible for even an experienced gunsmith to reassemble, asked the trustee.

“It is not impossible. However, if they do it wrong, they could possibly injure someone and create liability,” said Hudson.

And how long have they been in pieces, the trustee asked.

Since, “possibly August of last year,” answered Lauren Hudson, “depending on what part was affected.”

The trustee asked if the company complied with customer requests for the parts to be returned.

“I do not believe so,” answered Cy Hudson. “Since we did not have the correct part to fix the pistol. That was the only reason it wouldn't have left our facility. It would have opened another type of liability to the company… and we were working hard not to do that.”

So, somewhere above and beyond the millions of dollars of debt that Hudson's creditors will try to reclaim, there's almost $100k worth of bought and paid-for H9 components that may never find their way back to their owners. The boxes of disassembled H9s are left in a limbo state. Hudson is no more, as is its ability to pay for assembly, and or return shipping.

This is the first in a series of articles about the demise of Hudson Manufacturing.

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