Eight years after a mentally disturbed man killed eight people in a skyscraper massacre, the California Supreme Court will hear arguments today focusing on whether crime victims can sue a gun's manufacturer.
The review stems from the nation's first and only appellate ruling allowing a gun maker to be sued on grounds it partly was responsible for a criminal shooting. The case is being watched closely around the nation, where courts traditionally have insulated gun manufacturers from such suits.
The seven justices will consider an appeal by the maker of semiautomatic pistols used to slaughter the eight people in a San Francisco high rise in 1993.
Every state high court and federal appellate court to consider a suit against gun manufacturers has ruled that makers of legal, non-defective guns cannot be sued for their criminal misuse. The most recent decision came from New York's highest court, which ruled in April that gun makers cannot be sued for alleged negligence in marketing firearms.
But California's 1st District Court of Appeal ruled in 1999 that families of the victims in the San Francisco shooting were entitled to a trial on their claims that Navegar Inc., the Florida manufacturer of the TEC-DC9, marketed it to appeal to criminals and should have foreseen it would be used in a massacre.
That theme, whether gun manufacturers could have foreseen and prevented criminal violence, envelops a host of suits against the industry nationwide.
The California appellate court said Navegar
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