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CBS News
5 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Supreme Court blocks Mexico's lawsuit against major U.S. gunmakers in win for firearms industry
Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Mexican government's lawsuit against major U.S. gun manufacturers, delivering a win for the firearms industry in a test of a federal law that shields them from civil suits. The high court unanimously rejected Mexico's arguments that its effort to hold firearms makers accountable for the violence wreaked by drug cartels armed with their products should proceed because it satisfied an exception to the liability shield provided through the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA. In the case known as Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Mexico had argued that gun manufacturers are knowingly aiding and abetting the unlawful sale of their firearms to straw purchasers, who are trafficking them across the southern border to give to drug cartels. But the justices said that because Mexico's complaint does not plausibly allege that the gunmakers aided and abetted dealers' unlawful sale of weapons to Mexican traffickers, it was barred by PLCAA. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the court. Between 200,000 to 500,000 American-made firearms are trafficked into Mexico each year, a pipeline that's become known as the "iron river." Nearly half of all guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes are manufactured in the U.S., according to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. As part of its efforts to stem the flow of guns illegally trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border to arm drug cartels, the Mexican government sued seven of the biggest gunmakers in the U.S. and one wholesaler in 2021. It is seeking $10 billion in damages from the industry, as well as other forms of relief. Mexico has argued that its suit fell under one of PLCAA's exceptions, known as the predicate exception, because the gun manufacturers allegedly knew they were breaking the law by selling to known straw purchasers, and that violation led directly to Mexico's injuries: the millions of dollars in damage to its military and property caused by cartel violence. The law was passed with bipartisan support from Congress in 2005 and broadly provides a legal shield for gun companies from civil suits that seek to hold them liable for harms stemming from the criminal misuse of their products by another person. A federal district court in Massachusetts dismissed Mexico's suit in 2022 after finding that PLCAA "unequivocally" bars lawsuits seeking to hold firearms manufacturers liable for the actions of people using their products. The court also ruled that PLCAA's narrow exceptions did not apply to the case. But in early 2024, a panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit revived Mexico's lawsuit, concluding it fell under one of PLCAA's exceptions, known as the predicate exception. That allows suits against gunmakers to be sued if they knowingly broke the law, and if that legal violation led directly to Mexico's injuries. The appeals court found that the gun industry was "aiding and abetting" the unlawful sale of firearms to traffickers for cartels in Mexico, and that the trafficking of those guns has foreseeably forced the Mexican government to incur significant costs because of cartel violence. The case arrived at the Supreme Court while it was in its early stages. As the gunmakers' appeal was pending, the district court dismissed six of the eight manufacturers from the case. The remaining companies are Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms, a wholesaler.
Boston Globe
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Supreme Court appears skeptical of Mexico's lawsuit against US gunmakers
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Lots of sellers and manufacturers of ordinary products know that they're going to be misused by some subset of people,' Kavanaugh said, citing carmakers and pharmaceutical companies. Advertisement Filed in 2021, the case, Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, has allowed the Mexican government an avenue for a counterargument: that US gun companies share in the blame for violence by drug cartels because their guns make their way to Mexican crime scenes. Mexico asked for some $10 billion in damages. A trial court judge dismissed Mexico's case against six of the defendants on other grounds, leaving the Supreme Court's decision in the case to apply to claims against Smith & Wesson, a gun manufacturer, and Interstate Arms, a wholesaler. Lawyers for Mexico have cited statistics showing that between 70 percent and 90 percent of guns from Mexican crime scenes come from the United States. They also contend that gun dealers in the states that border Mexico sell twice as many weapons as dealers in other parts of the United States. Noel J. Francisco, a lawyer representing the gun industry, argued that the industry was insulated against such lawsuits by the 2005 federal law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. 'Congress' entire purpose was to prohibit lawsuits just like this one,' Francisco said. Advertisement But the law includes a carve-out for claims to proceed if plaintiffs can show that their injuries were directly caused by knowing violations of firearms laws. Mexico argued that its case falls under that exception. This article originally appeared in
Vox
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Vox
The Supreme Court will decide if gun companies are to blame for arming Mexican cartels
It's hard to imagine a lawsuit that faces more challenging political headwinds than Mexico's case against US gun companies in Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos . Briefly, the nation of Mexico sued seven US gun manufacturers plus a company that distributes firearms, claiming that these companies knowingly (and illegally) supplied guns to drug cartels in that country which set off an epidemic of violence. According to a federal appeals court that previously heard this case, 'defendants produce more than sixty-eight percent of the U.S. guns trafficked into Mexico, which comes out to between 342,000 and 597,000 guns each year.' Mexico makes a plausible case that these companies have profited handsomely off of these weapons, which allegedly cause thousands of deaths in Mexico every year. Yet there are three reasons to doubt that Mexico has any shot of prevailing in the US Supreme Court. The first is a 2005 federal law, known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act ('PLCAA'), which gives gun makers and sellers an unusual amount of immunity from lawsuits of all kinds. This law seeks to prevent suits against gun manufacturers 'for the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.' Guns, of course, are designed and intended to be used as deadly weapons. That said, PLCAA does contain some exceptions to this general rule, including an exception for gun manufacturers who aid and abet a violation of state or federal law. But that brings us to the second reason why Mexico faces an uphill climb: The Court's most recent precedent governing when someone can be held liable for aiding and abetting is fairly vague, and it contains language that is favorable to both parties' positions in this case. That means that the justices could potentially read this case to benefit whichever party they want to win. And that brings us to the third reason why Mexico is unlikely to prevail: The politics of this case are simply awful. The Supreme Court has 6-3 Republican supermajority, and those Republicans have tripped over themselves to rule in favor of pro-gun causes — even writing an entirely new interpretation of the Second Amendment in order to make the law much more favorable to guns. While there are reasonable legal arguments supporting both sides of this case, Smith & Wesson asks a Republican Supreme Court to choose between ruling in favor of gun makers and ruling in favor of Mexicans. If you're a gambler, it's easy to decide which side of that bet you should take. Of course, it's still possible that a majority of the justices will side with Mexico here. Realistically, however, Mexico faces a tough fight in a Supreme Court that's shown a great deal of solicitude for the gun industry — even in cases that don't involve a federal statute that protects gun companies from liability. Mexico sued a broad range of American gun companies, including Smith & Wesson, Glock, Colt, and Beretta. While their factual allegations are somewhat complicated, Mexico essentially argues that these companies knew that their guns were being distributed to dealers who were selling them to cartels, often indirectly through 'straw' purchasers who would buy the guns and then sell or transfer them to cartel members. According to Mexico's brief, the defendants 'routinely receive alerts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) showing that 'guns they sell to specific distributors and dealers are being recovered at crime scenes in Mexico.'' Mexico alleges that the gun companies continue to do business with these distributors or dealers despite those warnings. Ordinarily, PLCAA prohibits lawsuits arising out of 'the criminal or unlawful misuse' of a gun by a 'third party' — meaning that a gun manufacturer cannot be sued if someone uses their product to commit a crime. But the law contains an exception for suits where a gun maker 'knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product, and the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.' So which statute have the gun makers allegedly violated? As the appeals court that heard this case explained, 'Mexico reasons that by deliberately facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns into Mexico, defendants aid and abet violations of various federal statutes that prohibit selling guns without a license, exporting guns without a license, and selling to straw purchasers.' So this case is complicated, and it involves a fair amount of labyrinthian statutory language. The most important thing to understand is that this case is likely to turn on what it means to 'aid and abet' a violation of a federal licensing or anti-straw purchaser law. Mexico and the defendants both interpret this phrase quite differently. The answer to that question is likely to hinge on Twitter v. Taamneh (2023), a recent, unanimous decision discussing what it means for one person to aid and abet an illegal action by another person. Twitter involved a federal law that permits any American who is injured by an act of international terrorism to sue anyone who 'aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance' to anyone who commits 'such an act of international terrorism.' The plaintiffs were American relatives of people killed in ISIS terror attacks, who claimed that major social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube aided and abetted those attacks because they sometimes hosted recruitment videos posted by ISIS. Much of the Twitter opinion is favorable to the gun manufacturers' position. In ruling for the social media companies, all nine justices were worried about creating a world where any company could be sued for any remote consequence caused by their product. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the Court, 'if aiding-and-abetting liability were taken too far, then ordinary merchants could become liable for any misuse of their goods and services, no matter how attenuated their relationship with the wrongdoer.' At the same time, the gun makers at the heart of the Smith & Wesson case have a much closer relationship with gun dealers than Twitter or Facebook had with a terrorist group. And the legal rule announced in the Twitter decision is quite vague. Specifically, the Court announced that, in order to aid and abet an illegal act, a defendant must 'have given knowing and substantial assistance to the' person who actually performed that act. Thomas added that a weaker demonstration that the defendant knew what was going on might be overcome by a greater showing of assistance, or vice versa. Smith & Wesson arrives at the Court at an early stage of the litigation; no trial court has examined Mexico's factual allegations. Because of that, the justices are required to treat all of Mexico's allegations as true. So, it would likely be improper for the Court to dismiss this case right now. Notably, the appeals court which heard this case determined that Mexico's suit could move forward under Twitter . But Twitter also provides a justice who wants to rule in favor of the gun companies with plenty of reasons they can use to justify their preferred result. In addition to fighting over the proper way to read decisions like Twitter , Mexico and the gun companies also disagree over the proper meaning of a legal term known as 'proximate cause.' Recall that the PLCAA allows suits against gun companies to move forward if those companies knowingly violated a law, and this violation 'was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.' Proximate cause is a foundational legal concept that law students typically spend a fair amount of time studying during their first-year Torts class. It refers to an act that doesn't just cause someone to be harmed, but that the law deems legally sufficient to justify holding the actor liable for that harm. Basically, it helps courts decide who is responsible (and who is not) for some injury. Think of it this way: Suppose that Jack hits someone with his car while driving home, breaking one of their ribs in the process. Any number of acts could be said to have 'caused' this accident, including the car manufacturer's decision to make that car and the car dealer's decision to sell it to Jack. But we don't normally think of these sorts of remote causes as a good basis for a lawsuit. Absent any evidence that the dealer or the manufacturer behaved wrongfully or negligently, the law will hold Jack solely responsible for his negligent driving. While the concept of proximate cause can be slippery, the general rule, as laid out in a treatise cited in Mexico's brief, is that a defendant can be held responsible for injuries that are the reasonably 'foreseeable' result of their illegal actions. Indeed, the Twitter opinion seems to embrace this view, stating that 'people who aid and abet a tort can be held liable for other torts that were 'a foreseeable risk' of the intended tort.' Thus, for example, while a car dealer ordinarily would not be liable for selling a car to someone who gets into an accident with that car, the rule might be different if Jack had shown up to the dealership and loudly bragged about how much he's looking forward to using his new car to injure people. In this case, the dealer reasonably should have foreseen that selling a car to Jack would lead to another person being injured. The gun companies, however, propose a radical reimagining of the concept of 'proximate cause' in their brief. They claim that, when a chain of events leads to a bad outcome, the legal cause of that outcome is generally 'limited to the 'first step' in a causal chain.' This is especially true, they argue, when that chain of events involves 'separate actions carried out by separate parties' — that is, when multiple independent actions by multiple people led to the bad outcome. Thus, under the gun companies' proposed rule, if a gun manufacturer sells a gun to a distributor, who sells it to a dealer, who sells it to a straw purchaser, who sells it to a cartel member, who uses it to kill a Mexican police officer, it is likely that only the cartel member could be held liable for this death. The problem with the gun companies' proposed rule, however, is that limiting liability to just one actor in a causal chain would lead to absurd results. Suppose that Jack, after visiting a neighbor, intentionally leaves that neighbor's front door wide open, and even puts up a sign reading, 'Hey thieves! There's lots of stuff behind this totally unlocked door that you can steal.' Under the gun companies' theory, if a burglar takes Jack up on this invitation, only the burglar could be held liable for the theft, and not Jack, even though the burglary could have never taken place without Jack's malicious action. In any event, the concept of proximate cause can sometimes be difficult to apply to individual cases. And courts sometimes struggle to determine whether a particular defendant reasonably should have foreseen an illegal act by another individual. But the gun companies' proposed rule is too simplistic, and it would allow many companies to escape liability even when they knew full well that someone would use their products to do something awful. It is likely, given the Supreme Court's Republican supermajority, that these justices will find some way to rule in favor of the gun companies in Smith & Wesson . Should that happen, however, we should hope they do so in a way that doesn't lead to preposterous results in a whole mess of future cases. See More: Criminal Justice Gun Violence Policy Politics Supreme Court
