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James v. Arms Technology3/11/2003
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
Argued December 9, 2002
Since 1995, over thirty cities and counties have filed law suits in other jurisdictions against gun manufacturers seeking to recover the cost of governmental services associated with gun violence. Many of the cases have been dismissed on the pleadings on the bases, among others, that: (1) the public entity lacked standing; (2) its alleged damages were too remote to satisfy the proximate cause element; and (3) the gun manufacturers' conduct did not constitute a public nuisance. In others, courts have addressed each of these issues, denied the motions to dismiss and permitted the case to go forward beyond the pleading stage. This is the first such case filed in a New Jersey state court. In the complaint, plaintiffs Mayor Sharpe James and the City of Newark (hereinafter referred to collectively as the City) name twenty-eight gun manufacturers, two trade associations and two distributors or retailers as party defendants. The complaint is in nine counts, advancing the following causes of action: defective and negligent design by defendant-manufacturers (count one); defendant-manufacturers' failure to include safety devices (count two); all defendants' failure to provide adequate warnings that guns were unreasonably dangerous (count three); negligent marketing and distribution by all defendants (count four); defendant-trade associations' negligence in failing to develop safer guns (count five); all defendants' creation of a public nuisance (count six); unjust enrichment of all defendants (count seven); punitive damages (count eight); and all defendants' liability under the New Jersey Products Liability Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:58C-1 to -11 (count nine). Seventeen of the gun manufacturers and a distributor/ retailer, defendant Navy Arms Company, Inc., moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. R. 4:6-2(e). The two trade associations, defendants National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. and Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturing Institute, Inc., filed a separate motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim. R. 4:6-2(b) and -2(e). By order dated January 8, 2002, Judge Minuskin dismissed the counts sounding in strict liability and unjust enrichment (counts one, two, three, seven and nine). However, he denied the motion as to the City's negligence, public nuisance and punitive damage claims (counts four, five, six and eight).
By leave granted, sixteen of the twenty-eight gun manufacturers and two distributors/retailers have appealed from the order denying their motion to dismiss. The City has not cross-appealed dismissal of the strict liability and unjust enrichment counts.
We affirm. At this posture of the case we are not concerned with the City's ability to prove the facts alleged in its complaint. Printing Mart-Morristown v. Sharp Elecs. Corp., 116 N.J. 739, 746 (1989). Our role is to decide whether, indulgently read, "'the fundament of a cause of action may be gleaned'" from the pleadings, ibid. (quoting Di Cristofaro v. Laurel Grove Mem. Park, 43 N.J. Super. 244, 252 (App. Div. 1957)), giving the City the benefit of all reasonable factual inferences that the allegations support. F.G. v. MacDonell, 150 N.J. 550, 556 (1997). Applying that standard, we agree with the trial judge that the City should be permitted to go forward with its claims of negligence, public nuisance and punitive damages. We reject defendants' arguments that, based on the pleadings, the City's alleged damages are too remote from defendants' conduct to satisfy the proximate cause requirement as a matter of law. We also reject their argument that the City's ple
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