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District of Columbia v. Beretta4/21/2005
are aris out of the gun manufacturers' ability to reduce the risk of illegal gun trafficking through control of the marketing and distribution of their products," pointing out that to "impos such a general duty of care would create not only an indeterminate class of plaintiffs but also an indeterminate class of defendants whose liability might have little relationship to the [social] benefits of controlling illegal guns." Id. at 1063. Although the plaintiffs had "presented [the court] with a novel theory - negligent marketing of a potentially lethal yet legal product, based upon the acts not of one manufacturer, but of an industry - we are unconvinced," the court concluded, that "on the record before us the duty plaintiffs wish to impose is either reasonable or circumscribed." Id. at 1068.
The plaintiffs here point out that Hamilton was not decided on a motion to dismiss but only after a trial had shown the absence of proof "that the gun used to harm [the injured plaintiff] came from a source amenable to the exercise of any duty of care that plaintiffs would impose upon defendant manufacturers." Id. at 1062. But the plaintiffs in our case do not claim that through discovery they may be able "tangibl " to show "that defendants were a direct link in the causal chain that resulted in plaintiffs' injuries," id. (emphasis added) - that, in the language of our cases, those injuries were foreseeable to the defendants in the "heightened" sense entailing "'precise proof'" of knowledge and corresponding ability to prevent required by our decisions. Potts, supra. At most the plaintiffs allege that the defendants in the aggregate know that a sizeable number of the firearms they manufacture make their way, through dealer practices they reasonably could limit, into the District of Columbia and into the hands of criminals, sometimes with "only a short time passing between the retail sale of a firearm outside the District and its criminal misuse in the District." Complaint, 123. Even if, as they claim, discovery may enable them to tie a particular weapon used to kill or injure a named plaintiff or his decedent to a particular manufacturer, they would still not have established a cognizable - i.e., a "reasonable or circumscribed," Hamilton, supra - common-law duty to these plaintiffs rather than a duty to the class of all potential victims of gun violence in the District. They would not, in sum, have stated a claim under our decisions for common-law negligence based on injuries resulting from the criminal acts of third parties.
There is an additional reason why we decline to recognize the plaintiffs' claim for common-law negligence in the distribution of firearms. The Council of the District of Columbia has intervened precisely in this area by enacting a strict liability statute governing the manufacture and sale of a subclass of firearms (assault weapons) whose lethal character, in its judgment, outweighs any social utility they may have. See D.C. Code ยง 7-2551.02. Under that statute, as we hold in part V, infra, the individual plaintiffs have stated a valid claim (and the District as well may have limited subrogation rights). In analogous circumstances, this court has refused to expand the boundaries of a common-law cause of action in tort. Specifically, in Carl v. Children's Hosp., 702 A.2d 159 (D.C. 1997) (en banc), the full court adopted the tort of wrongful discharge as an exception to the traditional at-will doctrine governing termination of employment, where the discharge violates "a clear mandate of public policy." Id. at 164. Although we left future applications of the tort to be decided on a case-by-case basis, we stressed that any such application must be "carefully tethered to fundamental policies" i
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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