Appeals Court Throws Out Gun Maker Suit

[Jeff White]

Appeals court throws out gun maker suit
BY WILLIAM LHOTKA
Of the Post-Dispatch
07/27/2004

The Missouri Court of Appeals threw out St. Louis' five-year old lawsuit that tried to sue gun makers for the social costs of gun violence.

In their six-page opinion, Judges Gary Gaertner, Mary Rhodes Russell and Sherri Sullivan concluded that the Missouri General Assembly prohibited the type of suit that St. Louis had filed in a new law it passed last year.

The city had sought millions in compensatory and punitive damages from gun manufacturers, dealers and distributors on the grounds that the defendants didn't do enough to prevent guns from getting into the hands of those who used the weapons to commit crimes.

Filed in 1999, the suit was dismissed Oct. 15 by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Emmett M. O'Brien on different grounds. O'Brien ruled that such complaints against gun makers could open courthouse doors to limitless suits against a vast array of industries.

The appellate panel didn't get into O'Brien's reasoning. The judges said they had the authority to affirm or dismiss a case if it can be "supported by the motion, even if the trial court did not rely on that ground.''

Missouri's new law prohibits such suits by cities and towns and keeps jurisdiction over gun regulation with the state alone, the court found.

Get more on this story on STLtoday.com later or in tomorrow's Post-Dispatch.

 

[Standing Wolf]

[SINCERITY] A w w w w w w w w w w w ! [/SINCERITY]

 

[El Tejon]

Thank goodness. Can you imagine the flood of litigation against alcohol, furniture (obesity), sugar (obesity), meat (heart disease), computers (obesity, computer fraud, sexual predators, teen pregnancy), ink pens (used to write bad checks), etc, inter alia. . .

 

[Jeff White]

The Full Story From Today's Paper

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...y+loses+appeal+in+suit+against+gun+industry++
City loses appeal in suit against gun industry
By William C. Lhotka
Of the Post-Dispatch
07/27/2004

The power of the Legislature trumps the power of a city, the Missouri Court of Appeals said Tuesday in throwing out St. Louis' lawsuit seeking to make firearm makers pay money for the social cost of gun violence.

Relying on a law that took effect Oct. 12, a three-judge appellate panel affirmed the trial judge's dismissal of the suit against 32 named and unnamed weapons manufacturers, dealers and distributors.

No spokesman for the city could be reached for comment Tuesday.

The defendants were accused in the suit of a failure to properly supervise the sale and distribution of firearms, and to prevent the guns from ending up in the hands of criminals.

From 1994 to 1999, the St. Louis Police Department seized 18,766 guns, according to court documents.

The suit - filed under then-Mayor Clarence Harmon - was one of dozens of such measures introduced throughout the country. Proponents sought compensatory and punitive damages from the gun makers the way some courts put financial blame on the tobacco industry for the public cost of smokers' health problems.

"In no instance, have any municipalities won after a final conclusion of a case," Lawrence Greenwald, a Baltimore attorney, said Tuesday after the Missouri decision. Greenwald is considered the gun industry guru on the issue. He had argued the industry side before the appellate court in St. Louis last month.

"The fundamental issue which cuts through this entire case is: Should the city, which is not a person who got shot, collect from gun makers, who didn't do the shooting?" Greenwald had asked Judges Gary Gaertner, Mary Rhodes Russell and Sherri Sullivan.

The three judges never got to that issue because, in Greenwald's words, they "took the most direct route of disposing of the case. The legislation plainly prevents this type of case."

Passed last year, vetoed by Gov. Bob Holden, and then enacted in an override of that veto, the measure says specifically: "The lawful design, marketing, manufacture, distribution, or sale of firearms or ammunition to the public is not an abnormally dangerous activity and does not constitute a public or private nuisance."

The law goes on to say that no county, city, town or village can sue or recover damages. It permits individuals to recover damages if they can prove negligence or defective design.

Dale Schmid, president of the Second Amendment Coalition, a pro-gun group, said Tuesday: "The suit was poorly motivated to begin with. The General Assembly passed the measure to prevent the waste of taxpayers' money."

City attorneys tried to argue that the new law is unconstitutional because its was being applied retroactively to impair the city's pending case. But the appellate court said the suit's proponents failed to raise the issue of constitutionality before St. Louis County Circuit Judge Emmett M. O'Brien and mentioned it only "as an afterthought" in later arguments.

O'Brien dismissed the city's case Oct. 15 - three days after the new law took effect. O'Brien used other grounds. He said such complaints against gun makers could open courthouses to a flood of frivolous suits against a wide array of industries.

Jonathan E. Lowy, of the Washington-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, took exception to that ruling. In appellate court arguments last month, he said the gun industry had brought on such suits by failing to police itself, and by failing to set up a code of conduct for the dealers.

So far, the suits against gun makers have yet to yield a single penny, but some have moved forward into the pretrial process in states such as Indiana and Ohio. The industry claims that defending itself is costing it millions of dollars.

In March, gun industry proponents failed to get through the U.S. Senate a measure that would do nationally what Missouri did - immunize the industry from lawsuits.



Reporter William C. Lhotka
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 314-615-3283