Bushmaster lawsuit may proceed

Ordinarily, the denial of a motion to dismiss is not an appealable ruling, so the case would have to go forward, with the movant being able to raise that issue on appeal. However, there are certain instances in which a party may take an interlocutory appeal from the denial of a motion to dismiss, or a motion for summary judgment, to have one of those motions heard at the appellate level before proceeding with discovery.

Because Bushmaster was the movant (the one making the motion to dismiss the case), the burden was on Bushmaster to support its claim for dismissal.

Please accept my apologies for not providing citation to all of the above. I'm in the middle of other legal research that has to be done immediately.

There's no "practical evidence" put on at the motion to dismiss (MTD) stage. It's pure legal argument, like: (1) The PLCAA applies to us; (2) the PLCAA doesn't allow this lawsuit; therefore (3) this lawsuit should be dismissed.

If evidence outside of the pleadings is introduced, the MTD is converted to a Motion for Summary Judgment (MSJ). As a practical litigation matter, you don't want that. In the absence of some pretty extraordinary circumstances, you'll get one MTD and one MSJ. You file your MTD and hope to win. If you lose (and cannot take an interlocutory appeal), you start gathering your evidence for an MSJ. Then, if you lose that (and, again, cannot take an interlocutory appeal), you gear it up for trial.

stchman said:

Bushmaster is not liable for what someone does with their products, Bushmaster is liable if one of their products is defective.

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That will be for a court to decide.

MEHavey said:

stchman said:

This is nothing but posturing by anti-2A people that have no understanding....

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That is now irrelevant.
It will go before a deep-pockets-ain't-it-awful-someone-
must-pay jury -- jammed by an emotional appeal.

...and the precedent will be set.

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Maybe. It may also be 3-5 years before it ever sees a jury, if at all.

If I were defending it, I'd be: (1) looking for a way to get the federal court to weigh in on the applicability of the PLCAA; or (2) trying to take an interlocutory appeal of the denial of the MTD. Or both.

Hypnogator said:

Thanks, Spats, for taking the time to share your procedural knowledge!

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You're very welcome.

First, this is a fine example of how a civil immunity law can not guarantee that you will not have to defend a civil lawsuit. The PLCAA provides certain classes of persons/businesses with civil immunity for certain activities and subject to certain exceptions. But whether the activities are within the protection of the law, or the exceptions take the activities outside those protections, can be disputed; and in the event of such dispute, litigation will be needed to resolve the dispute.

HOOfan_1 said:

...why should Bushmaster have to prove why PCLAA doesn't apply to this case....

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Because the PLCAA is an affirmative defense and must therefore be pleaded and proved by the defendant.

Spats McGee said:

There's no "practical evidence" put on at the motion to dismiss (MTD) stage. It's pure legal argument, like: (1) The PLCAA applies to us; (2) the PLCAA doesn't allow this lawsuit; therefore (3) this lawsuit should be dismissed.....

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Thanks, Spats. Allow me to expand on this and outline, in very broad terms and glossing over many details, how civil litigation works.

• A lawsuit begins when someone, called the "plaintiff", files with an appropriate court a document called a "complaint." The complaint alleges certain facts (e. g., that certain things happened, that certain people did certain things, etc.) and that as a result of these facts the plaintiff has a legally recognized claim against someone, called the "defendant", on the basis of which claim the defendant has to do something (e. g., pay money to the plaintiff, stop doing something he is doing, or do something he isn't doing).
  
  
• The plaintiff gives (serves) the defendant a copy of the filed complaint (there are rules about how this needs to be done). The defendant now has several options:
  
  
  1. The defendant can file with the court (and serve on the plaintiff) a motion to dismiss (MTD, called a "demurrer" in some States). The MTD says, essentially, that as a matter of law the plaintiff has no legally recognized claim, and the MTD includes a detailed legal argument as to why that's the case. The parties now argue the matter in court, and the judge makes a decision.
     
     
     • No evidence is presented in connection with a MTD. It is decided purely on legal grounds. For the purposes of deciding the MTD, each and every fact alleged in the complaint is assumed to be true. So basically, in the MTD the defendant asserts that even in everything the plaintiff has said is true, he has no claim against me; and he loses as a matter of law.
       
       
     • If the judge grants the MTD, the defendant wins and the plaintiff loses the lawsuit. The plaintiff can now appeal. (A judge can also dismiss the suit but allow the plaintiff to amend the complaint, but we won't go into all of that here.)
       
       
     • If the judge denies the MTD, the lawsuit continues, and the defendant goes on to the next step: the answer.
     
     
  2. If the defendant loses the MTD (or decides not to make an MTD) the defendant files with the court (an serves on the plaintiff) an answer to the lawsuit. The answer basically denies the allegations of the plaintiff.
  
  
• Once the defendant has answered, the process called "discovery" can begin. This is a formal process of investigation subject to oversight by the court. Each party can require the other to answer questions (called "interrogatories") in writing and under oath. Parties can compel the production of documents. Depositions (the questioning of a person, under oath and with the answers being transcribed) can be taken.
  
  
• After discovery, one party, or both parties, might decide to file a motion for summary judgment (MSJ).
  
  
  1. The basis of an MSJ is that there is no dispute as to the material facts and that, therefore, the court can decide the matter on the basis of those facts without the necessity of fact-finding by trial.
     
     
  2. An MSJ will be decided based upon documentation, e. g., transcripts of depositions, responses to interrogatories, documents produced during discovery, and affidavits, supporting the MSJ.
     
     
  3. If the judge finds that there is no dispute as to the facts, he (or she) can decide the case. But if there is a dispute, the case goes to trial.
  
  
• At trial, each side presents evidence to prove its respective claims as to what the facts are. A trier-of-fact, either a jury or the judge, decides what the facts are based on that evidence, applies the law to the facts, and decides who wins and who loses. The loser can appeal on the basis of claimed errors of law made by the trial judge during the proceedings.

So what we're looking at here is a lawsuit and a very preliminary stage. The judge has apparently found that the factual claims of the complaint, which must be accepted as true at this point, get the suit outside the protections of the PCLAA. But Bushmaster isn't done yet and can still establish the applicability of the PCLAA, notwithstanding the plaintiffs' claims.

I haven't read the decision, but it may or may not be that the PLCAA "does not apply." As Frank pointed out, every factual allegation in the complaint must be taken as true at the MTD stage. At this stage, the defendant isn't even denying allegations, but rather saying things like "for the purposes of this motion and this motion only, the defendant presumes without admitting, that X is true."

Some of those pled facts may later be proven untrue, or new facts (as in 'not contained in the complaint') may emerge during the discovery process, or there may even be facts which are known to Bushmaster, but which cannot be proven without an affidavit or testimony. (In that case, you don't put on that evidence, because doing so would convert it to an MSJ, as noted above.) Any one of those scenarios might push this back under the "PLCAA umbrella."

All we really know at this point is that Bushmaster was not able to overcome all of the factual allegations of the complaint (taken as true), to the satisfaction of this judge, sufficient to grant an MTD.

This show ain't over yet.

Spats McGee said:

...All we really know at this point is that Bushmaster was not able to overcome all of the factual allegations of the complaint (taken as true), to the satisfaction of this judge, sufficient to grant an MTD....

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And it is very difficult for a defendant to get a definitive win at the MTD stage. Except in unusually situations (e. g., trying out a novel theory of liability), a decent plaintiff's lawyer can usually draft a complaint that will survive a MTD.

Derry 1946 said:

...I think Frank means "trier of fact," not "tier."...

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Thanks. I never was much good at spelling.

gc70 said:

Here is the court's decision, which does not read exactly as it is being portrayed in some news reports.

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It is a highly technical decision based on certain particular wrinkles in Connecticut civil procedure.

It appears that while in many States, and in federal courts, the jurisdiction of a court to entertain a lawsuit and the legal sufficiency of the complaint can both be tested by a single form of motion to dismiss, in Connecticut there is a particular form of motion to test the jurisdiction and a separate form of motion to challenge the legal sufficiency of the complaint. This is a very formalistic way of dealing with the matter, and most jurisdictions have abandoned that degree of formalism and instead streamlined procedures. Obviously that hasn't happened in Connecticut.

In any case, the result is merely that the lawsuit continues to the next stage. So the defendants may still assert that the PLCAA provides protection from liability.

larry_minn said:

IMO the judge should have to pay any court costs after this point. The law is clear...

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Well the court doesn't agree with you, and the opinion of the court trumps yours.