Smith & Wesson asks U.S. Supreme Court to expedite appeal of Mexico lawsuit

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

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

The request came after a lower court on Aug. 7 dismissed the case against six of the eight gun companies in the lawsuit, which is still pending in federal district court in Massachusetts. The decision left gunmaker Smith & Wesson and gun wholesaler Interstate Arms as defendants.

In the suit, Mexico is demanding $10 billion from US arms companies for allegedly flooding the country with firearms. Mexico accuses the companies of fueling a wave of violent crime and claims their actions benefited criminal cartels.

While some gun control activists applaud Mexico’s lawsuit, gun rights advocates say it is foreign interference in American affairs aimed at crippling the U.S. gun industry and weakening the Second Amendment protections that Americans enjoy.

The gun manufacturers say the lawsuit is blocked 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 is expected to decide on Sept. 30 whether to hear an appeal by eight gun companies, Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

The appeal concerns the January 22 decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit allowing the lawsuit to proceed.

Circuit Judge William Kayatta wrote that while the PLCAA limits the lawsuits that foreign governments can bring in U.S. courts for damages suffered outside the United States, Mexico can proceed because it has made a plausible argument that the companies “committed willful violations of laws regulating the sale or marketing of firearms.”

Mexico claims that the illegal arms trade into that country is largely driven by demand from Mexican drug cartels for military-grade weapons.

Kayatta wrote that a spike in gun violence in Mexico in recent years “correlates” with the surge in gun production in the United States that began when the U.S. ban on assault rifles expired in 2004.

The First Circuit sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor of Massachusetts, who had previously dismissed the lawsuit against all eight defendant companies on September 30, 2022.

Saylor found in 2022 that the PLCAA “unequivocally prohibits lawsuits that seek to hold gun manufacturers accountable for the actions of individuals who use guns for their intended purpose.”

When Saylor reconsidered the case on August 7, he ruled that Mexico had not provided sufficient evidence to show that six of the companies were involved in gun crime in Mexico.

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

Mexico has indicated that it may appeal the dismissal decision.

In the meantime, that means Smith & Wesson and Witmer Public Safety Group, which does business as Interstate Arms, are still named as defendants in the lawsuit 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 warranted” because Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms “are not affected” by the Aug. 7 decision.

“As a result, Mexico is still seeking “joint and several” liability – worth billions of dollars, plus far-reaching legal remedies – against those two defendantswrote Francisco.

In joint and several liability, a plaintiff who obtains a judgment against the defendants jointly can collect the full value of the judgment from each of the defendants.

“Now, as before, leading members of the U.S. firearms industry face years of litigation costs and the specter of corporate-destroying liability,” Francisco wrote.

“And as before, this Court’s investigation is now warranted because Congress made clear in the PLCAA that this type of lawsuit against a law-abiding member of the firearms industry has no place in American courts and must be dismissed immediately.”

Lawfare is the strategic use of legal procedures to undermine or thwart the efforts of an opponent.

Mexico argued in a brief 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 from the criminal market for their products.”

The report said the arms companies were wrong when they claimed that the prospect of being “held liable for negligence and nuisance” posed “an existential threat to the arms industry”.

The Mexican attorney, Cate Stetson of Hogan Lovells in Washington, had not responded to a request for comment from The Epoch Times by the time of publication.

Stephen Katte contributed to this report.