Last week, the Kansas Supreme Court upheld a significant district court dismissal in Johnson v. Bass Pro Outdoor World, LLC, deciding that Bass Pro Outdoor World and Beretta USA/Beretta Italy cannot be sued by a man who was accidentally shot. The court cited the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a federal law that protects firearm manufacturers and dealers when products are misused in a crime and concluded neither can be held responsible for the incident.
In an unfortunate set of events in 2018, a former college football player purchased a Beretta handgun from a Kansas Bass Pro Shops location. According to court documents, while attempting to disassemble the firearm to show it to a teammate, he mistakenly believed the firearm was clear and would not fire if the magazine was removed. In further error, he also believed that the trigger had to be pulled before disassembly. These detrimental and erroneous assumptions subsequently led to his teammate, seated next to him, being shot in the leg, resulting in an injury requiring amputation.
The injured teammate subsequently filed a product liability lawsuit claiming the handgun lacked essential safety features that would have prevented a discharge and that both Beretta and Bass Pro Shops ultimately bore responsibility. The lawsuit also pointed to the man’s lack of knowledge on the firearm’s operation despite various directions and signed paperwork directing the purchaser to further training and education, as well as the Beretta’s frame being stamped with the message, “FIRES WITHOUT MAGAZINE.”
When the case reached the Kansas Supreme Court on appeal, the justices unanimously agreed with the district court that Bass Pro and Beretta are immune from the lawsuit because of the PLCAA’s protections. The analysis hinged on whether the lawsuit is considered a qualified civil liability action, per 15 U.S.C. § 7903(5)(A)(v). A qualified civil liability action is any civil action seeking damages resulting from criminal or unlawful use of a firearm. PLCAA bars product liability actions if the firearm discharge was caused by a volitional act and the shooting constituted a crime.
The court held that the PLCAA does, in fact, provide immunity for the firearm sellers and manufacturer in this case due to the commission of a volitional act, as well as this shooting constituting a crime. Even though there was no intention to fire the gun, the man deliberately pulled the trigger, a volitional act. Further, because he did so while stopped at a traffic light, it violated a Kansas strict liability law against discharging a gun on a public road, making it a criminal act, the ruling said.
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, signed into law by President Bush in 2005, continues to serve a critical role in reinforcing the well-established legal principle that companies lawfully conducting business cannot be held responsible for crimes they didn’t commit. Unfortunately, anti-gun activists continue to pursue lawsuits meant to sue the firearm industry into oblivion or to force “settlements” that include judicially imposed gun control.
NRA-ILA regularly reports on these abuses, for example, here, here, and here. We also remain committed to the important work of reinforcing the PLCAA at the federal and state levels, as well as advocating to ensure the law’s intent is upheld by the courts.
Beginning with the dubious decision in Soto v. Bushmaster, which provided the backdrop to Remington Arms’ bankruptcy, gun control activists have renewed their efforts to infringe all Americans’ Second Amendment rights by targeting the industries that serve them. It is therefore especially encouraging to see the Kansas Supreme Court embrace the commonsense notion, embodied in the PLCAA, that responsibility for Johnson’s lamentable injuries lies not with the companies that lawfully imported and sold the gun but with the man who intentionally pulled the gun’s trigger while the muzzle was pointed at Johnson.
More Like This From Around The NRA
