The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from Remington, allowing a lawsuit filed against the gun-maker by relatives of those killed in the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, to move forward to trial.
The dispute, which sets North Carolina-based Remington against the families of nine victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, could provide a blueprint for survivors of gun violence or the relatives of victims to bring successful lawsuits against firearms manufacturers.
Remington made the Bushmaster XM-15 used by gunman Adam Lanza in the rampage, and the families argue in their lawsuit that the firearms maker violated Connecticut law by marketing the AR-15-style rifle “for civilians to use to carry out offensive, military-style combat missions against their perceived enemies.”
At the heart of the lawsuit is a 2005 federal law that grants gun manufacturers legal immunity when their products are used in a crime. The law, however, provides several exceptions, including when the actions of the firearms manufacturer “knowingly violated a state or federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product.”
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in March the lawsuit filed by the families can move forward to trial, and Remington appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court in August. By declining to take up the case, the decision from the Connecticut Supreme Court remains intact.
In urging the Supreme Court to take up their appeal, Remington warned the case is “widely recognized as a bellwether for the future of firearms litigation” across the country and said the Connecticut Supreme Court’s ruling “threatens to unleash a flood of lawsuits nationwide that would subject lawful business practices to crippling litigation burdens.”
Siding with the Madison, North Carolina-based gun-maker were the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation, as well as 22 House members and nine states.
The NRA told the Supreme Court in a friend-of-the-court brief the decision from the Connecticut Supreme Court “threatens the Second Amendment rights of all American citizens.”
“Imposing what is effectively a company-killing level of liability cannot be squared with the basic policy judgments that underlie the Second Amendment,” the group warned. “The right to acquire firearms is meaningless if the industry that provides firearms is litigated out of existence.”
