Posted on 06/02/2005 11:58:52 AM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Gun company isn't liable for teacher's slaying, court says
By Bill Douthat
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 02, 2005
WEST PALM BEACH — An appeals court Wednesday dashed a widow's hope of punishing the gun industry for a so-called Saturday night special handgun used to kill a popular Lake Worth Middle School teacher.
Florida's civil negligence laws do not support a 2003 jury verdict that found the distributor of the cheap.25-caliber gun partially liable for the death of teacher Barry Grunow, the 4th District Court of Appeal said Wednesday.
Barry, then-3-year-old Sam and Pam Grunow in 1998. The court expressed sympathy but denied company liability for Barry's slaying.
The ruling could be the last legal gasp for Pam Grunow's long battle to have the gun industry share some blame for the campus shooting death of her husband in 2000.
"It's just a damn shame," said Grunow's attorney, Bob Montgomery. "We went into this with the idea of taking on the Saturday night specials. We were trying to right wrongs."
Montgomery said he won't ask the appeals court for a rehearing but that he may appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
Attorneys for the gun distributor, the Valor Corp. of Sunrise, said Wednesday's ruling makes it clear that manufacturers or distributors of non-defective products cannot be held liable for their misuse.
"We still feel very badly for Mrs. Grunow," said West Palm Beach attorney Tom Warner, who argued the appeal for Valor, "but the point is that if the product is not defective or unreasonably dangerous, then manufacturers and distributors should not be liable for someone criminally misusing a product some 12 years after it was sold, as it was in this case."
Warner said the responsibility for Grunow's death rests with Nathaniel Brazill, the 13-year-old student who gunned him down in a school corridor, with the grandfather who left the gun unsecured in a dresser and with the school board, which allowed Brazill to return to the campus after being sent home for misbehavior.
The three-judge appeals panel reached the same conclusion.
"We certainly sympathize with Grunow and recognize the tragedy of the events that transpired," said the opinion, which Judge Mark Polen wrote. "However, it was Brazill, his grandfather, and perhaps the school that were liable, not Valor."
Valor was the only defendant in the lawsuit.
Before the trial, Pam Grunow had settled with the school board for a guarantee of 17 years of her husband's salary and other benefits. Elmore McCray, the elderly Boynton Beach man Brazill called his grandfather, settled for $300,000.
Brazill, who is serving 28 years in prison for second-degree murder, stole the gun from McCray's unlocked dresser.
The 2003 jury verdict was for $24 million, but because the jury set Valor's liability at 5 percent, Grunow stood to collect only $1.2 million. Jurors found the grandfather 50 percent liable and the school board 45 percent responsible.
Two months after the trial, Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga voided the verdict as inconsistent. The form jurors used concluded that the gun was not defective, but on another question jurors found Valor negligent for not distributing a lock or lock box with the firearm.
The appeals court found no inconsistency in the verdict, saying Labarga reached the "correct result for the wrong reason."
"That is to say, Florida does not recognize a cause of action for negligent distribution of a non-defective firearm," Polen wrote in a decision supported by Judges W. Matthew Stevenson and Robert Gross. "There can be no liability on behalf of Valor in this instance."
Polen suggested that the Florida Legislature may be better suited to deal with Grunow's concern about gun locks and keeping handguns out of reach of kids.
But Montgomery said Tallahassee is not interested in gun control laws.
"You got a Republican legislature up there," Montgomery said.
New York attorney John Renzulli, the trial lawyer for Valor, said he doubts any gun legislation is likely.
"Floridians like their guns and like to be able to defend themselves with firearms," Renzulli said. "I don't think this is going to make hay."
Bull. You were trying to cash in.
Well, they still have the lawsuit against the sneaker manufacturer for helping the criminal get away fleet-footed and also the lawsuit against the get-away-car-manufacturer.
And, that's bad because......................???
What the gun dealers have to start doing is filing countersuits. These people will never go away in the hopes of finding a cooperative court unless they start getting punished.
Would the widder have been happier if the punk had used a thousand dollar custom made Kimber?
Many times I've seen a gun load, aim, and discharge all by itself.
WRM, Daschle poison-pilled last year's gun liability legislation to death, has there been any talk of reviving that bill and getting it thru this new Senate? It's very important.
Someone gets it!
It's time for the rest of the states to get it!
The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security!
Be Ever Vigilant!
That was a quote from the attorney for the firearms manufacturer, and he was saying it in an approving manner.
I love it when the hopes of a poor widow looking for a big payday (and her greedy lawshark) are dashed... all we need here is an image of Snidley Whiplash as the attorney for the gun company, tying this poor old wretch to the rail as a train with the Valor Gun Company logo on the front bears down on her... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....
Usually gun control advocates (and liberals in general) try to avoid being this explicit. Montgomery is making it clear that when his side doesn't have the popular votes to elect representatives to pass the laws which he thinks are desirable, then he believes it's perfectly appropriate to sidestep the legislature and try to convince activist judges to implement his policy preferences.
Understood. Thanks for the info.
The only "wrong" this S.O.B. was trying to right was probably lack of a circular driveway for the new sports car.
That's not enough of a payday?
"It's just a damn shame," said Grunow's attorney, Bob Montgomery. "We went into this with the idea of taking on the Saturday night specials. We were trying to right wrongs."
No, sir.. you weren't. You were doing one thing and one thing only: going after the party with the deep pockets.
A gun is an inanimate object -- learn it, love it and live it.
LOL!!! My point exactly.
WHOO-HOO!...er, I mean, how terrible for her...I feel her pain...not being able to win all that money.
Exactamundo! Couldn't have stated it better.
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