Gunmakers Shielded From Mexico Lawsuit, Supreme Court Rules (4)

The US Supreme Court threw out a Mexican government lawsuit that accused gunmakers including Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. and Sturm Ruger & Co. of helping to funnel firearms to the country’s violent drug cartels.

Voting unanimously, the justices said Mexico’s suit was barred under a 2005 US law that gave the gun industry broad protection from legal liability.

The 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act generally shields the industry from suits by gun-violence victims and their families but allows cases if companies knowingly violate the law in a way that causes injury. Mexico, which accused gun companies of intentionally trading with cartel suppliers, argued unsuccessfully that its aiding-and-abetting suit qualified for that exception.

“That exception, if Mexico’s suit fell within it, would swallow most of the rule,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court. “We doubt Congress intended to draft such a capacious way out of PLCAA, and in fact it did not.”

Mexico said the value of guns trafficked into the country from the US each year surpasses $250 million.

The gunmakers argued that they can’t be held liable for aiding and abetting under the 2005 law when they were selling their products legally.

The court agreed. “A manufacturer of goods is not an accomplice to every unaffiliated retailer whom it fails to make follow the law,” Kagan wrote.

The companies also contended they are so far removed from Mexico’s injuries that their actions can’t be the legally required “proximate cause.” The court said it didn’t need to decide that issue.

Gun-safety groups said they were pleased the court hadn’t accepted the gunmakers’ proximate-cause arguments, which could have broadly undercut future efforts to sue they industry.

“Today’s decision will end Mexico’s lawsuit against the gun industry, but it does not affect our ability and resolve to hold those who break the law accountable,” said David Pucino, legal director at Giffords Law Center, which supports gun restrictions. “The justices did not give the gun industry the broad immunity it sought.”

The organizations filing briefs on Mexico’s side in the case included Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group founded and backed by Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.

The gun industry hailed the ruling.

“Our client makes a legal, constitutionally protected product that millions of Americans buy and use,” said Noel Francisco, a Washington lawyer who represented Smith & Wesson and argued the case for the companies. “We are gratified that the Supreme Court agreed that we are not legally responsible for criminals misusing that product to hurt people, much less smuggling it to Mexico to be used by drug cartels.”

The National Rifle Association called the ruling a “HUGE LEGAL WIN” in a post on the X social media network.

The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals had said Mexico could press ahead with its suit in federal court in Massachusetts

The case is Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 23-1141.

Bias Suits

The case was one of six the Supreme Court resolved Thursday as it entered the homestretch of a nine-month term that is scheduled to end in late June or early July.

The court separately revived a job-bias lawsuit by a woman who says she suffered discrimination because she’s straight, in a ruling that makes it easier in some parts of the country for members of majority groups to get cases to a jury.

The justices unanimously said a federal appeals court was wrong to require majority workers — including White people, men and heterosexuals — to meet a more difficult test than members of groups that have historically faced discrimination.

The justices also ruled that Catholic-affiliated charities in Wisconsin were unconstitutionally denied a religious exemption from having to pay into the state’s unemployment tax program. The unanimous decision said the Wisconsin Supreme Court imposed an unconstitutional denominational preference by allowing the exemption only for groups that are operated primarily for religious purposes.

And the court backed out of a Labcorp Holdings Inc. clash that business groups had hoped would put new limits on class action lawsuits. Labcorp sought to stop a class action suit accusing a company unit of illegally discriminating by making its self-service kiosks at diagnostic centers inaccessible to blind people.

The court, which heard arguments in the case in April, on Thursday said the case was being “dismissed as improvidently granted.” That’s a step the justices sometimes take when they conclude a case doesn’t cleanly present the legal issue the court had sought to resolve.

(Updates with reaction from Smith & Wesson lawyer.)

--With assistance from Zoe Tillman.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

Peter Jeffrey

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