Product Liability -- 2004



District of Columbia v. Beretta U.S.A.   (D.C. Court of Appeals)

Negligent marketing and public nuisance liability

The NAM opposes the District of Columbia's law suit that attempts to hold gun manufacturers liable for damages resulting from the criminal misuse of guns. The District is another jurisdiction that is trying to use aggressive theories of "negligent marketing" and "public nuisance" to garner jury verdicts against manufacturers of legal products that are later misused. Our brief argued that DC legal precedents clearly do not allow such suits for negligence, and there can be no public nuisance claim when the manufacturer does not control the property at the time it is alleged to be creating the nuisance. On 4/29/04, the Court of Appeals ruled that individual common-law negligence and DC’s public nuisance claims must be dismissed. It allowed individual strict liability claims to proceed under DC’s automatic and semi-automatic weapons ban, as well as subrogation claims by the DC government for medical costs arising from such claims. Plaintiffs will still have to prove on remand that a particular manufacturer’s weapon was responsible for their injuries. The court rejected a Commerce Clause challenge to the impact of DC’s law on the legal manufacture and sale of firearms in other states.