Posted on 01/11/2005 6:57:23 AM PST by boris
Supreme Court won't toss local gun-liability lawsuit
By Hope Yen, Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider dismissing a lawsuit seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the 1999 shooting of a letter carrier by a white supremacist. Without comment, justices let stand a ruling of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors. The companies' weapons were used by Buford Furrow to kill Filipino-American postal carrier Joseph Ileto and wound five people at a Jewish day care center in a San Fernando Valley rampage.
The high court's move, which allows the lawsuit to proceed toward trial, is good news for gun-control groups who say increased liability will stop industry sales tactics that put weapons into the hands of criminals. Several cities nationwide have sought to sue gun manufacturers, but with little success.
Ileto's mother, Lillian, and families of the survivors contend that Georgia-based Glock Inc., China North Industries Corp., RSR Management Corp. and RSR Wholesale Guns Seattle Inc. should be held liable under California law because they knowingly facilitated and participated in an underground illegal gun market, according to the complaint.
A federal judge initially threw out the case, but a divided 9th Circuit panel reinstated the lawsuit in 2003. The panel said a since-repealed California statute immunizing gun manufacturers in product liability actions did not apply, because it did not address the plaintiffs' theories of negligent marketing and distribution.
The full 26-member 9th Circuit declined to rehear the case last May.
Christopher Renzulli, the attorney for Glock and the RSR companies, has said the gun Furrow used to kill Ileto was originally sold to the police department in Cosmopolis, Wash., by the RSR companies.
According to court records, the department sold the weapon to a gun shop in exchange for a different model. The shop sold it to a gun collector who is alleged to have sold it to Furrow, an ex-convict prohibited from purchasing weapons, at a gun show in Spokane, Wash.
The appeal filed by China North Industries Corp. argued that the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit overstepped its authority in expanding potential liability for gun manufacturers, a role the company says should be reserved for legislatures.
In the original decision reinstating the case, Judge Richard Paez of the 9th Circuit wrote that Glock's marketing strategy creates a "supply of post-police guns that can be sold through unlicensed dealers without background checks to illegal buyers."
In urging their colleagues to rehear the case, dissenting Judge Consuelo Callahan wrote that courts should "be chary of adopting broad new theories of liability."
Congressional legislation barring lawsuits targeting the industry failed last spring.
The case is China North Industries Corp. v. Ileto, 04-423.
"The public, the press and politicians are certainly free to criticize judges, Rehnquist said, but politicians cross the line when they try to
punish or impeach judges for decisions they do not agree with."
He's right, at least in a historical sense. Judges are appointed to life terms for the very reason that they are not subject to the blowing of political winds. Impeachment of SCOTUS justices, at least, is not something Congress takes lightly, even though they have that power.
Right now, the SCOTUS is leaning leftwards, despite some decisions that the right has applauded. Tomorrow, they may be leaning rightwards, depending on appointments made by President Bush.
And there's the problem with removing justices at will. Any Congress could impeach and remove the entire SCOTUS, if they had the guts for it. But that would remove the continuity of the court and make it a plaything for whichever party was in power. Right now, it's the Republicans. In two years, it could easily be the Democrats, depending on what happens in the country and outside of it.
I don't think we want to see a see-sawing federal judiciary. Continuity is important.
Judges should be term limited...10 yr for the SCOTUS, 5 yr for lower courts, staggered terms.
"Judges should be term limited...10 yr for the SCOTUS, 5 yr for lower courts, staggered terms.
"
An interesting idea. However, it will take a Constitutional Amendment to happen, and that's never easy to do. I doubt it would work at this time.
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Also: If Bush gets to appoint a couple of Supremes and it comes up on appeal...WHAMMO, or so I believe.
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