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Firearm decision might backfire (OH)
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Firearm decision might backfire
COLUMBUS - Any notion the Ohio Supreme Court's split 4-3 decision in Cincinnati vs. Beretta USA Corp. was confined to pure law is dispelled in the conclusion of the majority opinion in the landmark case.
In a commentary of concern over gun-related crime and violence, Justice Francis Sweeney held it was vital Cincinnati be allowed to sue handgun manufacturers for arming criminals and kids and creating a public nuisance.
"While we do not predict the outcome of this case, we would be remiss if we did not recognize the importance of allowing this type of litigation to go past the pleading stages," Sweeney wrote.
The justice then immediately quoted an article by two Johns Hopkins University professors about the wave of municipal lawsuits against the gun industry and other challenges to gun laws.
"As two commentators so aptly noted: "If as a result of both private and municipal lawsuits, firearms are designed to be safer and new marketing practices make it more difficult for criminals to obtain guns, some firearm-related deaths and injuries may be prevented.' "
Did the court majority - the activist wing of Justices Andrew Douglas, Paul Pfeifer, Alice Robie Resnick and Sweeney - tailor their conclusions in hopes of fostering a safer society courtesy of the bench?
Did their ruling represent judicial intervention on the side of anti-gun activists in their public policy debate with Second Amendment absolutists or was it restrained to sound legal reasoning?
The three court conservatives relegated to the minority in most hot-button cases - including rulings to overturn public school funding and lawsuit reforms - did not hesitate to answer in their dissents.
"Unwarranted legislative judgment," wrote Justice Deborah Cook.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, joined by Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, observed "the need for courts to grapple with these problems is simply unjustified by the general interest in deterring injurious conduct."
The potential legal grappling in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, where the city's lawsuit originally was dismissed, pits Stan Chesley and his law firm against some of the nation's top defense lawyers.
At stake, if the city does indeed proceed after re-evaluating its stance, are interesting questions that could break new legal ground.
Can the manufacturer of a legal product be held liable for creating a public nuisance and endangering public safety when others over whom they have no control are the ones pulling the trigger and causing harm?
Can a city recover damages for its costs of responding to gun violence when third parties, in this case a shooter and his victim, stand between the city and the manufacturer of a handgun?
The answers rest in part on whether Chesley can discover, through pre-trial activities, that gun manufacturers are knowingly selling their wares to dealers whom they know to be arming criminals.
There's also a product liability claim contingent on whether gunmakers have ducked opportunities to produce safer handguns.
Beyond the case at hand, this week's ruling throws another log on the fire around this fall's contest for two Ohio Supreme Court seats and control of the court's philosophical direction.
The NRA-types and other gun groups suddenly could become eager contributors to one or more of the third-party campaigns that are gearing up even now to wage TV commercial warfare for control of the Ohio Supreme Court. At stake is whether voters retain the court's current leanings or empower a consistently conservative court.
With Stratton considered a safe bet for re-election, control of the court comes down to the race for Douglas' seat between Democrat Tim Black, a judge in Hamilton County Municipal Court, and Republican Lt. Gov. Maureen O'Connor.
Trial lawyers and labor unions see Black as continuing Douglas' legacy to their betterment while big business and insurance interests believe O'Connor would help form a majority more to their liking.
Randy Ludlow is The Post's Statehouse bureau chief. Readers may contact him via e-mail at RGLudlow@cs.com
http://www.cincypost.com/2002/jun/15/ludlow061502.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
COLUMBUS - Any notion the Ohio Supreme Court's split 4-3 decision in Cincinnati vs. Beretta USA Corp. was confined to pure law is dispelled in the conclusion of the majority opinion in the landmark case.
In a commentary of concern over gun-related crime and violence, Justice Francis Sweeney held it was vital Cincinnati be allowed to sue handgun manufacturers for arming criminals and kids and creating a public nuisance.
"While we do not predict the outcome of this case, we would be remiss if we did not recognize the importance of allowing this type of litigation to go past the pleading stages," Sweeney wrote.
The justice then immediately quoted an article by two Johns Hopkins University professors about the wave of municipal lawsuits against the gun industry and other challenges to gun laws.
"As two commentators so aptly noted: "If as a result of both private and municipal lawsuits, firearms are designed to be safer and new marketing practices make it more difficult for criminals to obtain guns, some firearm-related deaths and injuries may be prevented.' "
Did the court majority - the activist wing of Justices Andrew Douglas, Paul Pfeifer, Alice Robie Resnick and Sweeney - tailor their conclusions in hopes of fostering a safer society courtesy of the bench?
Did their ruling represent judicial intervention on the side of anti-gun activists in their public policy debate with Second Amendment absolutists or was it restrained to sound legal reasoning?
The three court conservatives relegated to the minority in most hot-button cases - including rulings to overturn public school funding and lawsuit reforms - did not hesitate to answer in their dissents.
"Unwarranted legislative judgment," wrote Justice Deborah Cook.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, joined by Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, observed "the need for courts to grapple with these problems is simply unjustified by the general interest in deterring injurious conduct."
The potential legal grappling in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, where the city's lawsuit originally was dismissed, pits Stan Chesley and his law firm against some of the nation's top defense lawyers.
At stake, if the city does indeed proceed after re-evaluating its stance, are interesting questions that could break new legal ground.
Can the manufacturer of a legal product be held liable for creating a public nuisance and endangering public safety when others over whom they have no control are the ones pulling the trigger and causing harm?
Can a city recover damages for its costs of responding to gun violence when third parties, in this case a shooter and his victim, stand between the city and the manufacturer of a handgun?
The answers rest in part on whether Chesley can discover, through pre-trial activities, that gun manufacturers are knowingly selling their wares to dealers whom they know to be arming criminals.
There's also a product liability claim contingent on whether gunmakers have ducked opportunities to produce safer handguns.
Beyond the case at hand, this week's ruling throws another log on the fire around this fall's contest for two Ohio Supreme Court seats and control of the court's philosophical direction.
The NRA-types and other gun groups suddenly could become eager contributors to one or more of the third-party campaigns that are gearing up even now to wage TV commercial warfare for control of the Ohio Supreme Court. At stake is whether voters retain the court's current leanings or empower a consistently conservative court.
With Stratton considered a safe bet for re-election, control of the court comes down to the race for Douglas' seat between Democrat Tim Black, a judge in Hamilton County Municipal Court, and Republican Lt. Gov. Maureen O'Connor.
Trial lawyers and labor unions see Black as continuing Douglas' legacy to their betterment while big business and insurance interests believe O'Connor would help form a majority more to their liking.
Randy Ludlow is The Post's Statehouse bureau chief. Readers may contact him via e-mail at RGLudlow@cs.com
http://www.cincypost.com/2002/jun/15/ludlow061502.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
The Ohio Supreme Court voted 4-3 last week to reinstate a liability lawsuit filed by Cincinnati against a group of American handgun manufacturers in an attempt to recoup millions of dollars spent by the city on police, emergency, court and health-care services in response to gun-related violence.
Of course, such calculations rarely take into account the compensating benefits to the economy from the reduction in crime and personal injuries attributed to the deterrent effect of law-abiding Americans possessing legal arms for self-defense.
But the more important question here is whether our judges should be allowing any lawsuits to proceed which do not allege fraud, nor careless or willful production of defective products, but which rather attempt to bleed perfectly legal American businesses for the "offense" of manufacturing legal products.
Lawyers for the gunmakers -- including Beretta U.S.A., Colt's Manufacturing Co. and Smith & Wesson Corp. -- warned the court that a ruling in Cincinnati's favor could quickly lead to the manufacturers of other legal products being held equally liable.
"Alcoholic beverage manufacturers, who also produce a legal product, would be held liable for misuse of alcohol in the city of Cincinnati," said attorney James Dorr. "The same thing with automobile manufacturers who have a generalized awareness that their automobiles are going to be involved in accidents."
The Ohio justices ignored this sensible warning, instead narrowly holding that an appeals court was wrong in dismissing the lawsuit. The majority argued that the ruling does not imply the justices believe Cincinnati will prevail in its lawsuit, but only that the city had enough facts on its side to be allowed to pursue its claims.
Perhaps there will still turn out to be some ironic appropriateness in the fact that Cincinnati's chosen symbol is the winged bronze pig. For even though the Queen City is among 30-odd towns and counties nationwide that have sued the firearms industry in recent years, state supreme courts in Florida, Connecticut and Louisiana have all dismissed similar lawsuits there, leaving Cincinnati's as one of the last of these extortion plots still standing.
Those courts took seriously their role as "gatekeepers," charged with preventing overly creative class-action lawyers from using their courtrooms as charnel houses in which law-abiding defendant corporations can be hung on hooks, gutted and skinned out.
It's all well and good to say, "The suit will probably fail on its merits, eventually." But the justices in Columbus surely know there's little downside even for plaintiffs who roll the liability dice and lose -- while in fact most such suits are settled long before they ever reach a jury, as even innocent defendants find little choice but to cut their losses and pay these hyenas to go away and stop picking off the weakest of the herd.
A new law that took effect in Ohio last October grants gunmakers immunity from such lawsuits -- but doesn't affect the Cincinnati case because it was enacted after the lawsuit in question was filed. The law strikes a sensible balance -- quite properly, gunmakers would still would be held responsible for damage or injuries caused by defective weapons.
That's what the civil courts are for. To let them be used for anything else -- for extracting a pound of flesh from Anheuser-Busch because certain excessive drinkers develop liver disease, or from McDonald's because some folks who eat too many fries eventually develop diabetes -- is to risk paralyzing our entire economy in a cynical game of "who can pick the deepest pocket"?
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jun-17-Mon-2002/opinion/18962443.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Nil Illegitimus Carborundum
Too bad Timothy McVeigh didn't park outside HCI instead of where he did. Or even better than that. IRS headquarters.
Death to Tyrants!!!
-Gunphreak
But in the end, a judge is no more responsible for our protection than the police are (yet another call from judges) How convenient!!!
Death to Tyrants!!!
-Gunphreak