U.S.
Manufacturer of AR-15 Can Be Sued Over Sandy Hook Massacre, Court Rules
Connecticut Supreme Court allowed victims’ suit to move forward over its marketing of the gun
A Bushmaster AR-15 gun found at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in photo provided by the Connecticut State Police
A Bushmaster AR-15 gun found at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in photo provided by the Connecticut State Police Photo: Connecticut State Police/Reuters
By Jacob Gershman and
Cameron McWhirter
Updated March 14, 2019 6:31 p.m. ET
The gun industry suffered a potentially significant legal setback Thursday when the Connecticut Supreme Court said a leading maker of AR-15 rifles could be held legally responsible for marketing practices that allegedly made the semiautomatic gun the weapon of choice for mass shooters.
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that Remington Outdoor, the maker of the AR-15 style rifle used in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, can be sued over the deaths of children killed there. In this video from March 2018, WSJ’s Spencer Macnaughton explains how parents of the victims are using a 1977 lawsuit about a slingshot to argue that gunmakers are liable. Photo: AP
In a 4-3 ruling, the court overturned the dismissal of a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by families of victims killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The suit was brought against Remington Outdoor Co., the maker of the weapon Adam Lanza used to kill 26 people, most of them young children.
The ruling allows the plaintiffs to move forward with claims that Remington’s marketing campaigns violated Connecticut’s consumer-protection law, which prohibits advertising and marketing that is “immoral and unscrupulous.”
The plaintiffs alleged that Remington unlawfully promoted the rifle to young, civilian men as a weapon with awesome power and ideal for combat.
A representative for Remington didn’t respond to requests for comment. Remington had argued the claims were barred by a 2005 federal law that grants the gun industry expansive immunity from liability claims over gun violence. That law, however, has an exception, under which manufacturers may be liable for injuries resulting from violations of state laws dealing with the marketing of their products.
The trade association for the firearms industry called the ruling a disappointment. “The majority’s decision today is at odds with all other state and federal appellate courts that have interpreted the scope of the exception,” the National Shooting Sports Foundation said in a statement.
Legal experts said the outcome could have broad ramifications. The decision could give victims of other shootings a legal road map for establishing liability against an industry that has faced little legal threat for more than a decade.
“This ruling has basically blown a very large hole in federal immunity for firearms manufacturers in lawsuits against them that arise out of the criminal misuse of the weapons they sell,” said Georgia State University law professor Timothy Lytton, author of a book about gun litigation.
The plaintiffs might now also be able to use the lawsuit’s discovery process to pull the curtain back on Remington’s internal marketing strategy. In recent years, courts have largely thwarted such efforts.
Josh Koskoff, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said Thursday’s decision was a “critical step” toward shedding light on “Remington’s calculated and profit-driven strategy to expand the AR-15 market and court high-risk users.”
In its ruling, the court upheld the dismissal of several claims brought by the plaintiffs, finding them barred by the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. But the court found the marketing claim to fall outside the reach of the law.
“[T]here is no indication…that Congress intended to restrict the power of the states to regulate wrongful advertising, particularly advertising that encourages consumers to engage in egregious criminal conduct,” wrote Connecticut Justice Richard Palmer for the majority; Justice Palmer was nominated to the court by former Republican Gov. Lowell Weicker.
Barring an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the case now goes back to a trial court to determine the merits of the lawsuit’s wrongful marketing claims.
Lanza, who acquired a Bushmaster XM15-E2S from his mother, killed 20 school children and six educators in the shooting at the school on Dec. 14, 2012.
He shot himself to death as first responders arrived at the school.
AR-15-style rifles have been used in several mass shootings in recent years, including Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Texas, Parkland, Fla., and Pittsburgh.
First developed in the 1950s, AR-15-style rifles are light, gas-powered, semiautomatic weapons that can be fired rapidly with ease. The gun was marketed initially as a military weapon, and the military renamed it the M16, which can fire automatic and semiautomatic.
While no one keeps records of exactly how many AR-15 and similar rifles are sold in the U.S., the National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated that from 1990 to 2016 more than 11.4 million were produced to be sold domestically.
Plaintiffs alleged that Remington’s marketing campaigns were geared toward young video-game playing, military-obsessed young men and linked the AR-15 to macho vigilantism and military-style insurrection.
The company, the lawsuit claims, touted the gun’s “military-proven performance” and declared it “the ultimate combat weapons system.”
“Remington may never have known Adam Lanza, but they had been courting him for years,” a lawyer for the plaintiffs told the Connecticut high court during oral arguments in November 2017.
Legal experts say the most controversial part of the decision is the judges’ interpretation of the 2005 immunity law.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, particularly after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., the gun industry faced a wave of lawsuits from shooting victims and municipalities alleging criminal misuse of its products.
Gun groups who lobbied for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act trumpeted its passage as a death knell for such lawsuits.
But the Connecticut high court concluded that the immunity spelled out in the law wasn’t broad enough to throw out the Sandy Hook lawsuit.
Central in the dispute is an exception in the statute that says manufacturers can be liable for actions that violate state statutes “applicable to the sale or marketing of the product.”
The Connecticut Supreme Court said the immunity exception can cover a general consumer-protection law that’s not specifically about firearms.
Judges also rejected defendant arguments that the lawsuit was time-barred by statute of limitations and that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue because they lacked a business relationship with Remington.
Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Robinson, nominated to the court by former Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, wrote a dissenting opinion.
He said Congress intended for the exception in the 2005 law to cover state laws that “relate specifically to the sale and manufacture of firearms.”
Other states have consumer-protection laws like Connecticut’s. Mr. Lytton, the Georgia State University law professor, said the precedent in Connecticut could help victims of other shooting sprees persuade courts that the manufacturing, distribution, advertising and sales practices of firearms manufacturers constitute unfair trade practices.
Remington’s lawyers had argued that plaintiffs’ interpretation of the 2005 law would “severely undermine congressional intent.”
“The crimes that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School were horrific, and the losses suffered by the plaintiffs were immense,” the company argued in a brief. “But basic principles of law should not be discarded simply to serve the exigencies of particular cases.”
Write to Jacob Gershman at jacob.gershman@wsj.com and Cameron McWhirter at cameron.mcwhirter@wsj.com
