Jury Finds Gun Makers Liable for Criminal Use

A federal court jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., for the first time Thursday found handgun makers legally responsible for crimes committed with their guns and awarded more than $500,000 in damages to a New York teenager who was severely wounded in a 1995 attack.

The landmark decision is certain to embolden individual shooting victims and major cities considering whether to join local governments that have filed suits against the gun industry to recover their costs stemming from gun assaults and accidental shootings.

Although the monetary damages were modest, gun control advocates said the verdict will also increase pressure on gun makers to more closely monitor the distribution and sales practices of firearms in an effort to curb the flow of handguns to gang members and criminals.

Industry lawyers argued there was no way gun makers could be held liable for the criminal misuse of guns that were sold legally and produced without defects. Industry spokesmen said they would appeal the decision, which they said was reached through an improper compromise.

Following the monthlong trial, the 11-member jury deliberated six days before returning a complicated and mixed verdict in which 15 handgun makers were found guilty of negligence in the marketing and distribution of their guns. Ten other gun producers were cleared of negligence.

But in a confusing compromise, jurors decided to award no damages to six of the seven plaintiffs whose children or other family members were killed in gun attacks in the New York area.

The seventh plaintiff, 19-year-old Steven Fox, who survived a gunshot wound to the head, was awarded more than $500,000 in damages from three gun makers: Beretta USA, Taurus International Manufacturing Inc. and American Arms Inc. The firms are producers of .25-caliber handguns, similar to the one used to shoot Fox.

Among those found negligent, though not ordered to pay damages, were Bryco Arms and Phoenix Arms Inc., both Southern California firms; and Sigarms, Glock Inc.; and Colt’s Manufacturing Co. Ten others, including Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger Inc., were found not to have been negligent.

Gun makers in the past have paid settlements and judgments in cases of accidental shootings that were blamed on design or manufacturing defects. But before Thursday, they had uniformly defeated efforts to hold them responsible for the criminal misuse of their products.

Observers noted that Thursday’s half-million-dollar award will hardly cripple the industry but said that it raises the prospect of huge potential liability from other individual claimants, as well as big cities.

Bob Ricker, director of governmental affairs for the American Shooting Sports Council, an industry trade organization, said the manufacturers will appeal the decision, which he described as “one of the strangest civil jury verdicts I’ve ever seen.”

But he acknowledged that the outcome likely will lead fence-sitting mayors to conclude that it “may be worth their while to sue. We don’t agree with that, and we’re worried about that,” Ricker said.

“I think we’re still at an early stage [in gun litigation], but the gun companies should no longer regard themselves as invincible,” said David Kairys, a Temple University law professor and co-counsel for the city of Chicago, which filed an anti-gun lawsuit in November based on a legal theory that parallels the Brooklyn case.

The Brooklyn case, Hamilton vs. Accu-tek, filed in 1995 by lawyer Elisa Barnes, sought a finding of collective liability in which handgun makers would be forced to pay damages to gunshot victims based on the companies’ market shares.

It accused gun makers of flooding the market with more handguns than could possibly be absorbed by legal buyers, knowing that tens of thousands of weapons would quickly flow through traffickers to juveniles and felons.

According to arguments in the case, gun makers took a “see-no-evil” approach while sending a flood of firearms to states that have weak gun laws, particularly in the South, from which they were funneled to New York and other high-crime urban areas.

The closely watched case was seen as a trial run for suits by cities, some of which are also charging gun makers with negligent marketing practices. Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, Atlanta and Bridgeport, Conn., have already sued the industry, and other cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, are considering the move.

The jury of two men and nine women began deliberating Feb. 4, and in notes to Judge Jack Weinstein in the last couple of days of deliberations, said they seemed to be deadlocked.

But in a bit of high drama, the panel Thursday morning informed Weinstein that it was divided 10-1 on a liability finding--a single vote shy of the unanimity required.

In a note to the judge, the jury said the holdout was fearful that a plaintiffs’ verdict “will open the floodgates of lawsuits across the country.” Deliberations resumed after Weinstein instructed jurors that they should be guided only by the facts and instructions in this case.

“They obviously had a great deal of difficulty trying to arrive at a decision,” said James Dorr, one of the defense lawyers. “The bottom line . . . is that, in six out of the seven cases, there are no damages being paid by any of the defendants.”

Nonetheless, he said defense attorneys will ask Weinstein to enter a directed verdict for defendants that would override the jury’s decision.

The jury rendered separate verdicts for each of the seven plaintiffs, finding 15 of the 25 gun makers in the case had been negligent in their marketing and distribution practices. But the jurors found the manufacturers’ negligence contributed to only three of the seven shootings. And only in the attack on Fox did the jury conclude some of the firms should pay damages.

The jury found Fox and his mother should be entitled to $4 million in damages but held the three gun makers responsible for an amount based on their estimated 13% to 14% share of the handgun market. Based on those calculations, Fox would receive more than $500,000.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for . . . , a way to say to the manufacturers that you do have a responsibility after the gun leaves your plant,” said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence, a Washington group.

Horwitz predicted that the verdict will force firearms makers to take added precautions, such as selling only to distributors that agree to sell guns only to storefront dealers. Gun control advocates and law enforcement authorities say a substantial number of crime guns are sold at gun shows and by “kitchen table” dealers who sell from their homes.

In addition, Horwitz said, gun makers may be forced to dictate that their retailers refuse multiple sales to single individuals, who might resell the guns to juveniles or felons.

“It’s a huge victory,” said Denise Dunleavy, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Times wire services contributed to this story.