Kansas Supreme Court Tosses Lawsuit Against Gunmaker

The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that a former college football player who was shot by his teammate cannot sue gunmaker Beretta over his injuries. a victory not only for the firearms company, but for common sense as well. 

In 2018, about four months after Andre Lewis purchased a Beretta APX 9mm handgun, Lewis decided to show it off to his Emporia State University teammate Marquise Johnson while the pair were idling at a stoplight in the town of Emporia. According to the complaint, Lewis wanted to show Johnson that he knew how to properly disassemble the pistol, and apparently believed that once the magazine had been removed the gun wouldn’t fire. Lewis was also allegedly under the impression that the trigger of the APX pistol had to be pulled before he could take the gun apart, but as the Kansas Reflector reports, he was wrong on both counts. When he pulled the trigger Johnson was shot in the leg, and eventually required amputation below the knee to treat his injury.

Johnson’s attorneys filed a product liability lawsuit against gun manufacturer Beretta and retailer Bass Pro Shops. The suit alleged Bass Pro sold and Beretta manufactured a defective and unreasonably dangerous handgun.

“Unintentional shootings like Marquise Johnson’s are preventable,” said plaintiff’s attorney Jonathan Lowy. “Like any other product, guns can and should be made as safe as possible to make injuries less likely.”

Johnson’s injuries were preventable, and he never would have been shot had Lewis followed the basic rules of gun safety. Even if he believed the gun couldn’t fire once the magazine was removed, he still should have checked to make sure there was no round in the chamber, and he shouldn’t have aimed the pistol at Johnson when he pulled the trigger. 

The District Court in Lyons County granted summary judgment in favor of the firearm maker and seller based on a reading of the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The PLCAA forbids lawsuits against manufacturers or sellers when a person criminally or unlawfully misused a firearm. This federal immunity designed to shield the gun industry wouldn’t hold if the gun was used as intended or in a reasonable way.

The case attracted an amicus brief from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund that argued the immunity law applied only if the “volitional act, apart from the discharge, constitutes a criminal offense.”

In a split decision, the Kansas Court of Appeals reversed the district court and determined the federal statute didn’t offer immunity to defendants in this case because Lewis didn’t intend to discharge the gun.

That was a ridiculous conclusion by the appellate court. Let’s assume that Lewis didn’t intend to discharge the gun. He still pulled the trigger, and it was his action that directly led to Johnson’s injuries. 

Thankfully the Kansas Supreme Court recognized that the blame for Johnson’s injuries falls on the trigger puller, not the gun maker. 

“We hold that firearm sellers’ interpretation is a better reasoned and more accurately reflects Congress’ intent as reflected in the text of the PLCAA,” said Supreme Court Justice K.J. Wall.

Wall, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, said factual disputes about whether Lewis’ actions made him culpable for a criminal offense would typically be resolved by a jury. However, the justice said, it was a violation of state law for Lewis to discharge the gun on a public road.

“Under the unique facts of this case,” Walls wrote, “any dispute about Lewis’ mental state cannot save Johnson’s lawsuit from the PLCAA’s immunity provision.”

He said the Court of Appeals erred by reversing District Court Judge Merlin Wheeler’s decision to grant summary judgement against Johnson.

The court record indicated Lewis purchased the Beretta after reviewing Bass Pro Shop’s “10 commandments of safe gun handling,” which included a rule about keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. Apparently, Lewis reviewed the rules before signing a form to acknowledge he had read them.

The Beretta was accompanied by a user manual that explained the gun could fire even after a magazine had been removed. In addition, the booklet stated the gun’s striker-deactivation button allowed users to disassemble the gun without pulling the trigger.

The APX even had a big warning on the frame that told owners the gun fires even after the magazine has been removed, which makes the allegations against the gun maker and seller even more ridiculous. I have no idea why Lewis failed to apply the golden rules of gun safety or ignored the plain text of the owner’s manual, but neither Bass Pro nor Beretta should be held responsible for his negligent actions. 

We can all sympathize with Johnson, who lost part of his leg through no fault of his own, but he made a bad call in buying into whatever argument Lowy (a longtime anti-gun activist who’s also behind Mexico’s lawsuit against U.S. gunmakers) made that resulted in this lawsuit ever being filed in the first place. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was created to prevent lawsuits like this from ever moving forward, and it’s a shame that despite the PLCAA this litigation has likely cost both companies a substantial amount of money in legal fees to defend themselves against this now-defunct junk lawsuit.