Justices to Review Landmark Gun Ruling

The California Supreme Court has decided to review a landmark ruling that would open the way for gun makers to be held legally responsible when their products are used in crimes.

The court, acting on a petition by a gun manufacturer, agreed to review a Court of Appeal decision handed down in September that left gun makers vulnerable to negligence lawsuits in criminal shootings. The appeals court ruling is the only such decision by an appellate panel in the country so far.

The state high court’s ultimate decision in the case will affect several pending lawsuits filed against gun makers by Los Angeles, San Francisco and other California cities and counties.

In addition, the justices already have agreed to review several other gun-related cases, including one challenging the constitutionality of the state’s ban on assault weapons. Because of that, the court is likely to have a significant impact on gun control in California over the next year.

The grant of review was a victory for Florida-based Navegar Inc., which manufactured the semiautomatic assault weapons used in a 1993 rampage in a San Francisco high-rise that left eight dead and six wounded.

Attorneys for Navegar argued that the Court of Appeal’s 2-1 ruling had created a legal theory that could leave many kinds of businesses vulnerable to lawsuits for negligent marketing practices.

In allowing victims and relatives of the dead to sue Navegar over the high-rise shootings, the appeals panel in San Francisco cited evidence that Navegar “deliberately targeted the marketing” of its semiautomatic weapons to “persons attracted to or associated with violence.”

The company advertised that the weapons had “excellent resistance to fingerprints” and promoted them in such magazines as Soldier of Fortune, SWAT, Combat, Handguns, Guns, Firepower and Heavy Metal Weapons.

Ernest J. Getto, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents Navegar, said he was pleased that the court agreed to accept the case but declined further comment.

Dennis Henigan, legal director of the Washington-based Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, said he wished that the Supreme Court had allowed the case to go to trial but was not surprised by the decision to review it.

“This is obviously a very important case and it raises fundamental issues about the basic responsibility of gun makers,” said Henigan, whose group has helped represent plaintiffs in the case.

He said the plaintiffs will continue to argue that companies are required “to conduct their affairs with due regard for the safety of others, and that this manufacturer grossly departed from that standard of care.”

In its petition to the court, Navegar said that 16 other courts have rejected claims virtually identical to those made in the high-rise shooting lawsuit.

These courts have recognized that gun makers can be held responsible “only in circumstances in which [they have] the ability to control the resultant harm,” Navegar’s lawyers said.

The petition also said Navegar’s advertising did not induce gunman Giana Luigi Ferri to commit the mass murder. Ferri entered a law firm in the high-rise and opened fire in offices and hallways. He eventually shot himself to death in a stairwell.

The manufacturer’s description of the weapons as “resistant to fingerprints” was discontinued before the 1993 murders, the petition said. Navegar also advertised its weapons as “tough as your toughest customer” only in promotional material sent to distributors and dealers, not to the public, Navegar’s lawyers contended.

Frederick Brown, an attorney who represents the mother of one of the eight people killed in the shootings, asserts that the plaintiffs’ claims are not novel and are based on long-recognized negligence liability law. The “very special circumstances” of Navegar’s behavior make the gun maker responsible for the carnage, he said.

“We are confident we are going to win before the California Supreme Court because we don’t think they will decide that Navegar or others in their position should be given an exemption from negligence liability laws in California,” Brown said. “The weapon was marketed and produced to slaughter people and had no other use.”

Six of the court’s seven justices voted to review the case, Merrill vs. Navegar, during a closed conference Wednesday. Only Justice Stanley Mosk declined to support a review. The case was not listed on the court’s regular conference calendar because of an error, a court clerk said Thursday. No date has been set for a hearing.