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District of Columbia v. Beretta4/21/2005
5, 703 (1995) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 470 A.2d 751, 753-54 (D.C. 1983). At the same time, we do not read statutory words in isolation; the language of surrounding and related paragraphs may be instrumental to understanding them. See Carey v. Crane Serv. Co., 457 A.2d 1102, 1108 (D.C. 1983). "Statutory construction is a holistic endeavor, and, at a minimum, must account for a statute's full text, language . . . , structure, and subject matter." United States Nat'l Bank of Oregon v. Independent Ins. Agents of Am., 508 U.S. 439, 455 (1993) (citation and internal quotations marks omitted).
Applying these standards, we hold that the SLA confers a right of action on individuals who are injured, but not the District of Columbia. The statute makes manufacturers and others strictly liable in tort "for all direct and consequential damages that arise from bodily injury or death if the bodily injury or death proximately results from the discharge of" one of the enumerated firearms. Section 7-2551.02 (emphasis added). Bodily injury or death self-evidently can happen only to individual persons, not corporate entities. Surrounding provisions of the statute confirm the purpose to give redress to individuals. The statute does "not operate to limit in scope any cause of action, other than that provided by this [subchapter], available to a person injured by an assault weapon." Section 7-2551.03 (c) (emphasis added). And, it affords no right of action to "a person injured by an assault weapon while committing a crime," or to one seeking recovery "for a self-inflicted injury" resulting from "a reckless, wanton, or willful discharge of an assault weapon." Section 7-2551.03 (b) & (e) (emphases added). The subject of these provisions, then, is a right of action - granted, preserved, or withheld - of individuals, not government, to sue for damages arising from bodily injury or death traceable to assault weapons.
In its brief to the division, the District distinguished between the verb the legislature used - "arise from" - and others it might have used if it meant to restrict the class of those entitled to recover damages to individuals. "Individuals' injuries," the District reasoned, "are the source of the District's damages under the SLA, including the costs of law enforcement and healthcare services that 'arise from' the 'bodily injury or death' of individuals." Br. for D.C. to Div. at 38; see also Reply Br. for D.C. to Div. at 23 (claiming a right under the SLA "to recover the expenses that it incurred for law enforcement, health-care services, paid leave of employees, and other services" attributed to gun violence). But one need only consider the magnitude - the unboundedness - of such "damages" to realize the implausibility of the argument that the Council provided for them in the SLA by its choice of a verb and nothing else. "Arise from" may well connote a causal relation less direct and immediate than, say, "result from," but to freight it with a legislative intent to include the vast array of law enforcement costs and governmental health-care services attributable to assault weapon injuries as recoverable under the statute demands far more than the verb alone can bear. Neither it nor the addition of "consequential" to the "direct" damages recoverable expands, in our judgment, the class of those given a cause of action by the SLA.
The District asserts, however, an additional and more limited claim for damages that we conclude has validity. The complaint alleges that in addition to the right of action the SLA gives the District (a claim we have rejected), the District may recover under two other statutes the medical
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