Smith & Wesson Asks US Supreme Court To Expedite Its Appeal Of Mexico Lawsuit

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

U.S. gun maker Smith & Wesson asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 8 for “immediate review” of its appeal in Mexico’s ongoing $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. firearms companies.

A Smith & Wesson .357 magnum revolver is displayed at the Los Angeles Gun Club in Los Angeles, California on December 7, 2012. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

The request was made after a lower court on Aug. 7 threw out the case against six out of eight gun companies in the lawsuit, which is pending in federal district court in Massachusetts. The decision left gun maker Smith & Wesson and gun wholesaler Interstate Arms remaining as defendants.

In the suit, Mexico is seeking $10 billion from U.S. gun companies for allegedly flooding that country with firearms. Mexico blames the companies for a violent crime wave, saying their actions benefited criminal cartels.

Although some gun control activists welcome Mexico’s lawsuit, gun rights advocates say it constitutes foreign interference in U.S. affairs and is aimed at crippling the U.S. firearms industry and weakening the Second Amendment protections enjoyed by Americans.

The gun companies say the suit is barred by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) of 2005, which was enacted to protect the industry from frivolous lawsuits.

The Supreme Court already is scheduled to consider on Sept. 30 whether to hear the appeal of the eight gun companies called Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

The appeal concerns the Jan. 22 decision of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that allowed the lawsuit to proceed.

Circuit Judge William Kayatta wrote that even though the PLCAA limits lawsuits that foreign governments may bring in U.S. courts for harm experienced outside the United States, Mexico could move forward because it made a plausible argument that the companies committed “knowing violations of statutes regulating the sale or marketing of firearms.”

Mexico claims that illegal gun trafficking into that country is driven largely by Mexican drug cartels’ demands for military-style weapons.

Kayatta wrote that a spike in gun violence in Mexico in recent years “correlates” with the boost in gun production in the United States that started when the U.S. assault weapon ban lapsed in 2004.

The First Circuit returned the case to U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor of Massachusetts, who had previously dismissed the lawsuit against all eight corporate defendants on Sept. 30, 2022.

Saylor found in 2022 that the PLCAA “unequivocally bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the acts of individuals using guns for their intended purpose.”

When Saylor revisited the case on Aug. 7, he ruled that Mexico had failed to present enough evidence to show that six of the companies were connected to gun crime in Mexico.

The six defendants Saylor dismissed from the suit are Sturm, Ruger & Co.; Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc.; Glock Inc.; Colt’s Manufacturing Co. LLC; Century International Arms Inc.; and Beretta U.S.A. Corp.

Mexico indicated it may appeal the dismissal decision.

In the meantime, this means that Smith & Wesson and Witmer Public Safety Group, which does business as Interstate Arms, are still named as defendants in the suit pending in Saylor’s court.

In the Aug. 8 filing, Smith & Wesson attorney Noel Francisco of Jones Day in Washington told the Supreme Court that “immediate review … is still needed” because Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms are “unaffected by” the Aug. 7 decision.

“As a result, Mexico is still pursuing ‘joint and several’ liability—to the tune of billions of dollars, plus far-reaching injunctive relief—against those two defendants,” Francisco wrote.

With joint and several liability, a plaintiff who secures a judgment against the defendants collectively may collect the full value of the judgment from any of the defendants.

“So just as before, leading members of the American firearms industry are facing years of litigation costs and the specter of business-crushing liability,” Francisco wrote.

“And just as before, this Court’s review is warranted now, because Congress made clear in PLCAA that this sort of lawfare against any law-abiding member of the firearms industry has no business in American courts, and must be promptly dismissed.”

Lawfare is the strategic use of legal proceedings to undermine or frustrate the efforts of an opponent.

Mexico argued in a brief that it filed with the Supreme Court on July 3 that the First Circuit’s decision was correct.

The lawsuit should be allowed to proceed because the companies “deliberately chose to engage in unlawful … conduct to profit off the criminal market for their products.”

According to the brief, the gun companies were wrong to argue that the prospect of them being held “liable for negligence and public nuisance” presents “an existential threat to the gun industry.”

Mexico’s attorney, Cate Stetson of Hogan Lovells in Washington, didn’t respond by publication time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

Stephen Katte contributed to this report.