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District of Columbia v. Beretta4/21/2005
tion, but the effects that these differences have on commercial decisions, even those that involve interstate trade, are not by themselves nearly so direct as to 'affect commerce' in the constitutional sense.
Bowman v. Niagara Mach. & Tool Works, Inc., 832 F.2d 1052, 1056 (7th Cir. 1987) (emphasis in original).
2. Due Process
"A person who sets in motion in one State the means by which injury is inflicted in another may, consistently with the due process clause, be made liable for that injury whether the means employed be a responsible agent or an irresponsible instrument." Young v. Masci, 289 U.S. 253, 258 (1933). As we have seen, the SLA imposes liability on out-of-state manufacturers of firearms (there are none in the District) for injuries caused to innocent persons from the "discharge of assault weapon or machine gun in the District of Columbia." D.C. Code ยง 7-2551.02 (2001) (emphasis added). The defendants nevertheless argue that the SLA constitutes an attempt by the District to impose its own policy choices as to gun regulation on other states where the manufacture of machine guns is lawful, thereby violating due process. They rely principally on BMW of N. Am., Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996) - or more precisely on two sentences from Gore. The first is the Court's statement that "it follows from . . . principles of state sovereignty and comity that a State may not impose economic sanctions on violators of its laws with the intent of changing the tortfeasors' lawful conduct in other States." Id. at 572. The second, providing the due process link, is that "' o punish a person because he has done what the law plainly allows him to do is a due process violation of the most basic sort.'" Id. at 573 n.19 (citation omitted).
The defendants first of all confuse punishment - and the issue of punitive damages before the Court in Gore - with a state's authority to permit compensation to victims for injuries suffered within its jurisdiction. In State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003), which also dealt with punitive damages and applied Gore, the Court made that distinction explicit. See id. at 416 (explaining the "different purposes" served by compensatory and punitive damages). One looks in vain in either Gore or State Farm for a suggestion that a state may not permissibly decide that certain products, whether manufactured within or outside a state, are so dangerous that their manufacturers should face strict liability in tort for injuries the products contribute to within the State. Gore, in fact, affirmed a state's right to impose "economic penalties" on out-of-state manufacturers, "whether the penalties take the form of legislatively authorized fines or judicially imposed punitive damages," so long as such penalties are "supported by the State's interest in protecting its own consumers." Gore, 517 U.S. at 572. Under Gore, the SLA would violate due process only if it penalized manufacturers "for conduct that was lawful where it occurred and that had no impact on [the District] or its residents." Id. at 573 (emphasis added); see also State Farm, 538 U.S. at 422 (for punitive damage purposes, " awful outof-state conduct may be probative" if it has "a nexus to the specific harm suffered by the plaintiff"). In sum, no due process issue is raised by legislation that seeks to redress injuries suffered by District residents and visitors resulting from the manufacture and distribution of a particular class of firearms whose lethal nature far outweighs their utility. See, e.g., City of Boston v. Smith & Wesson Corp., 66 F. Supp. 2d 246, 250 (D. Mass 1999) ("As plaintiffs here are seeking relief only on behalf of injured parties in Massachusetts, th
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 District of Columbia Personal Injury Attorneys
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