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CT Supreme Court And The Lawsuit That Won't Die

carbinemike

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The CT Supreme Court over ruled a lower court ruling and sent the Newtown survivors lawsuit back to the lower court. Folks, this will end up in with Remington petitioning for the supreme court to hear this case. It has been whittled down some. CT ruled that the feds didn't intend for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to overshadow state law. The lawsuit is also reduced to how Remington marketed the Bushmaster. The CT ruling said "Congress did not intend to immunize firearms suppliers who engage in truly unethical and irresponsible marketing practices promoting criminal conduct". I still can't fathom how that works when Lanza did not buy the gun...he murdered the buyer (his mother). Other articles on this ruling made note that Remington marketed "a weapon of war" to the American public.

After months of silence, the Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting against Remington Arms, the manufacturer of the rifle used in the shooting.

The court's narrow decision, overturning a lower court judge, rules that Remington can be sued over its marketing practices under a Connecticut state law, despite protections offered to gun manufacturers by federal law. The ruling sends the case back to the lower court.

The suit is a high-stakes challenge to gun companies, which have rarely been held liable for crimes committed with their products, and could mark a new front in the battle over gun regulations and corporate accountability. It centers on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a 2005 law that shields manufacturers and retailers from civil liability in lawsuits brought by victims of gun violence. An eventual ruling against Remington could establish legal precedent, opening doors for more lawsuits against gun manufacturers, and expose the company's communications about its marketing plans.

The 4-3 majority largely upheld arguments made by lawyers for Remington that the company is protected from suit in many instances. The court ruled, however, that Congress did not intend the PLCAA to preclude state law. Ultimately, the majority said, the plaintiffs should have the opportunity to prove that Remington violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA) by marketing a military-style weapon to civilians.

Connecticut law, the court wrote in the majority opinion, "does not permit advertisements that promote or encourage violent, criminal behavior." While federal law does offer protection for gun manufacturers, the majority wrote, "Congress did not intend to immunize firearms suppliers who engage in truly unethical and irresponsible marketing practices promoting criminal conduct, and given that statutes such as CUTPA are the only means available to address those types of wrongs, it falls to a jury to decide whether the promotional schemes alleged in the present case rise to the level of illegal trade practices and whether fault for the tragedy can be laid at their feet."

A Connecticut Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2016, agreeing with lawyers for Remington that the case falls within the "broad immunity" gun manufacturers and sellers are afforded under the PLCAA. The state Supreme Court decision, however, paves the way for the suit to continue and for lawyers to access internal documents from the firearms companies.

Lawyers for the gunmaker argued that there was no way for Remington to assess the shooter, and therefore no way they could have known what the gun would be used for.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2014 by nine families of the victims in Sandy Hook and a teacher who was injured in the shooting. It names gun manufacturers and distributors Bushmaster, Remington, Camfour Holdings LLP, as well as Riverview Gun Sales Inc., the gun shop where the shooter's mother purchased the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, and the store's owner.

Remington Arms filed for bankruptcy in March of 2018, which effectively stalled the lawsuit. In May 2018, the company announced that it had emerged from bankruptcy.
 
Been tried before and failed. Allowing this opens up a Pandora's box that goes way beyond gun manufacturers.
 
So, in Connecticut, if someone gets drunk and get his car or truck and kills someone the auto manufacturer should be sued. Man, crazy crap.

But, liberals don't believe in personal responsibility and accountability.
 
So, in Connecticut, if someone gets drunk and get his car or truck and kills someone the auto manufacturer should be sued. Man, crazy crap.

But, liberals don't believe in personal responsibility and accountability.

I think the lawsuit now means that Chevy can build a fast Camaro and they aren't liable for what crime someone commits with it. However, if they advertise it as fast, show it ripping up the road and tie it to masculinity they can be sued as their advertising drove someone to commit a crime with their product. Unreal. In all that has gone on with the Newtown murders I have yet to hear the left blame anything but the gun. They really don't believe in personal accountability. They believe in collectivism and group rights. They don't seem to comprehend individual rights. Guns are the number 1 example of this. Free speech is #2. Free speech os ok as long as nobody in the group is offended.
 
Free speech is #2. Free speech is ok as long as nobody in the group is offended.

Only if it offends the right people. Being while male, I cannot be offended by anything. Now a transsexual can be offended by everything because they are at the bottom of the lefts hierarchy.

The reality of the left is what they say it is. If they say something different 10 minutes from now, then that is reality because that's what they say it is.

They have the same reality as a 2 year old.

It really is quite an amazing phenomenon, something one would have been committed for in the past.
 
Only if it offends the right people. Being while male, I cannot be offended by anything. Now a transsexual can be offended by everything because they are at the bottom of the lefts hierarchy.

The reality of the left is what they say it is. If they say something different 10 minutes from now, then that is reality because that's what they say it is.

They have the same reality as a 2 year old.

It really is quite an amazing phenomenon, something one would have been committed for in the past.

Well said!
 
There's so much legal precedent against this type of lawsuit that it's clearly a sjw bench ruling that not only will get decimated in aapeals court but will also result in the prosecutors paying for the defense legal fees.

Literally just lawyers taking advantage of people.

Lucky gunner won the suit against the Colorado shooting victim family. They owe over $200k in restitution for legal fees.
 
I hate all this "Weapon of War" and "who needs an automatic weapon for self-defense" crap in the news.

Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say what we are allowed to defend ourselves against or with. One might like to assume it means aall enemies foreign and domestic, but It doesn't try to imagine that at all.!
 
I hate all this "Weapon of War" and "who needs an automatic weapon for self-defense" crap in the news.

Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say what we are allowed to defend ourselves against or with. One might like to assume it means aall enemies foreign and domestic, but It doesn't try to imagine that at all.!

I remember when the news media started referring to "assault weapons" , it wasn't an hour later a politician had picked up on it.
 
I would like someone to invent a non-assault weapon, and show us what it looks like.

A weapon that may be used without assault on a person.

There ain't no such thing my brothers.
 
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its a war on words with feeling.

When combated with the hard truth that the AR-15 is not the standard issue to our military they try to fall back on... "military style". When you press them on what that means if the military version literally functions differently with a 3 round burst and full auto.... you can finally whittle them down to.... complete gun confiscation... or them saying that you should die or be killed.... or both.

Usually that progression on social media takes 3-5 posts from them to go "ballistic" when they can't substantiate their own ignorance.
 
Well a judge shot this lawsuit down and of course they are promising to appeal it.

A Connecticut judge has thrown out a closely watched lawsuit against Remington Outdoor over the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, saying the plaintiffs failed to maneuver around a federal law prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers over crimes committed with their products.

In a 54-page ruling, Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis ticked through the various ways plaintiff lawyers tried to make a case against Remington, which made the Bushmaster rifle Adam Lanza used to kill 26 children and teachers on Dec. 14, 2012. All failed to fit the exceptions Congress wrote into the law, including one for "negligent entrustment," or knowingly transferring a weapon to someone who will use it to commit a crime.

Plaintiff lawyers representing the families of Sandy Hook victims argued this was a “top-down” case where the “entrustment” was to the public at large, and the public was incapable of handling the military-style weapon Adam Lanza used. They also sued the distributor that bought the gun at wholesale from Remington and the retailer who sold the gun to Lanza's mother Nancy, a licensed gun owner whom Lanza killed before moving on to a nearby elementary school.


“To extend the theory of negligent entrustment to the class of nonmilitary, nonpolice citizens – the general public – would imply that the general public lacks the ordinary prudence necessary to handle an object that Congress regards as appropriate for sale to the general public,” Bellis wrote. “This the court is unwilling to do.”

Attorney Joshua Koskoff of Koskoff & Bieder vowed to appeal the dismissal.

"While the families are obviously disappointed with the judge’s decision, this is not the end of the fight," he said in a prepared statement. "We will appeal this decision immediately and continue our work to help prevent the next Sandy Hook from happening.”

The judge did agree with the plaintiffs, over Remington’s objections, that the manufacturer qualified as a “seller” under the PLCAA subject to the negligent entrustment exception. But the judge rejected the plaintiffs' argument that Remington could be said to have entrusted the weapon to someone who used it in a criminal manner.

Examining legislative history, the judge found that dissenting members of Congress tried to broaden the definition of negligent entrustment to include a series of transactions that place a gun in a criminal's hands, but failed. Cognizant of massacres like Columbine, she wrote, Congress limited negligent entrustment to the direct transfer of a weapon to a shooter.

“Based on the clear intent of Congress to narrowly define the `negligent entrustment’ exception, Adam Lanza’s use of the firearm is the only actionable use,” she wrote. Therefore none of the people the defendants actually entrusted the gun to “used” it to commit a crime.

The judge also rejected the plaintiffs’ attempt to slip their claims in under Connecticut’s consumer protection law, saying that law is limited to lawsuits where the plaintiff had some business relationship with the defendant.

And she rejected their product-liability claims, because the gun most definitely worked as intended.

The dismissal puts an end to an innovative attempt to get around the PLCAA, which Congress passed to thwart lawsuits against gun manufacturers over the crimes committed with their products. Judge Bellis allowed the case to proceed longer than might have been expected, given the clear conflict with the PLCAA, and even mused that there might be a comparison to cigarette litigation at a June hearing on Remington's motion to dismiss.

Remington is owned by Freedom Group, a unit of Cerberus Capital.
 
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