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City of Chicago v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp.11/18/2004
using injury or death. Both the possession and use of firearms and the driving of motor vehicles are highly regulated by state law. In the present case, the existence of the alleged nuisance in the city of Chicago is several times removed from the initial sale of individual weapons by these defendants, just as the intoxicated driver was at least twice-removed from the defendant in Watson.
The appellate court in Watson found it unreasonable to expect the car rental company to foresee a single accident caused by an intoxicated teenage driver who took the keys to the car without the permission of the person who had rented the car. In the present case, the claim of negligent entrustment has been dismissed and its dismissal has not been appealed. Thus, we are not faced with the question of whether a gun dealer might be held liable for negligently entrusting a weapon to an individual buyer when it is foreseeable that the buyer might allow a third party to possess or use the gun illegally. Instead, plaintiffs argue that it is foreseeable to these defendants that the aggregate effect of numerous sales transactions occurring over time and in multiple different locations operated by businesses with no ties to each other will result in the creation of a public nuisance in another city.
Finally, although these dealers' sales of weapons create a condition that makes the eventual harm possible by putting these weapons in private hands, it is not at all clear that the condition would cease to exist even if these particular defendants entirely ceased selling firearms. Just as in Watson, in which the intoxicated teenager managed to gain access to a set of car keys, those who intend to illegally possess and use firearms in the city of Chicago would still be able to obtain them. The manufacture and sale of firearms is legal. There is a market for these products that is served by thousands of dealers all across the country. The sales that would otherwise have been made by these dealers would be made by others. Ultimately, there would be a shift in market share between these dealers and others and, perhaps, an increase in the price of illegal weapons "on the street" as those intent on illegal gun ownership had to go further afield in search of weapons to buy.
Public policy also supports a conclusion that neither duty nor legal cause can be established with regard to these defendants. In Evans v. Shannon, 201 Ill. 2d 424 (2002), we invoked public policy when we declined to impose a duty on a car rental company to check the drivers' licenses of employees of the entities to whom it leased cars. We stated that a "duty so imposed would have far-reaching consequences, logically extending to every person who takes his or her vehicle for repair or servicing, and requiring that commercial and private car owners alike police the hiring practices of businesses with whom they deal." Evans, 201 Ill. 2d at 438. In the present case, the consequences of imposing a duty upon the dealer defendants to prevent the creation of a public nuisance in the city of Chicago by those intent on illegally possessing and using guns in the city are equally far-reaching. The same concerns underlie our conclusion that it is inadvisable as a matter of public policy to deem the dealer defendants' actions a legal cause of the alleged nuisance.
Based on the pleadings before us, we conclude that the alleged public nuisance is not so foreseeable to the dealer defendants that their conduct can be deemed a legal cause of a nuisance that is the result of the aggregate of the criminal acts of many individuals over whom they have no control. This is one of those " `instances in which a party may have contributed in some remote way [to th
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