Of the Post-Dispatch
06/09/2004
Jonathan E. Lowy, senior attorney with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in Washington, urged the three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals to reinstate the city's suit against 32 defendants.
Lowy's counterpart in the 40 minutes of oral arguments Wednesday was Lawrence Greenwald, a lawyer from Baltimore who represents one of the gunmakers, Beretta USA Corp.
While Lowy travels the country urging courts to find damages against gunmakers the way some courts have put financial blame on the tobacco industry, Greenwald insists the arms business has done nothing wrong.
"The fundamental issue which cuts through this entire case is: Should the city, which is not a person who got shot, collect from gunmakers, who didn't do the shooting?" Greenwald asked. "That is exactly what St. Louis is trying to do."
The suit was filed in St. Louis Circuit Court in 1999, when Clarence Harmon was mayor. It made its way to St. Louis County, with 32 named and unnamed gun manufacturers, dealers and distributors as defendants.
In effect, it is an attempt by the city to recover from the gun industry what it said were the social costs of gun violence. Similar suits have been filed across the country.
On Oct. 15, Judge Emmett M. O'Brien dismissed the city's case. O'Brien - and Greenwald on Wednesday - cited a New York ruling that said such complaints against gunmakers would "likely open the courthouse doors to a flood of limitless" suits against a wide array of industries.
Lowy said O'Brien's dismissal even before the discovery process had begun was "a radical step." The Brady Center lawyer said Missouri's public nuisance law is clear that an undesirable interference with common rights is a violation, and the gun industry "has chosen to take part in unreasonable sales practices that eventually reach the criminal gun market."
Asked by Judge Gary Gaertner for a specific violation, Lowy said gunmakers have failed to set up a code of conduct and standards of practice for dealers who sell their weapons.
Judge Mary Rhodes Russell wanted to know the effect on the case of Missouri law regulating guns. Greenwald said the statute pre-empts any city or political subdivision other than the state from regulating weapons.
"Here the city is trying to go in through the back door" and regulate weapons through the courts, he said. He said most of the courts elsewhere were finding in favor of the industry.
"The direction is plainly against holding manufacturers liable for actions by criminals over which manufacturers have no control," Greenwald said.
Judge Sherri Sullivan was the third member of the appeals court panel, which will rule later.
Reporter William C. Lhotka:
E-mail: blhotka@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-615-3283