During Tuesday’s oral arguments in Smith & Wesson’s attempt to have Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit dismissed, SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested Mexico’s gun lawsuit seeks courts to do that which Congress does not want.
In a transcript of the oral arguments, posted on the SCOTUS website, Justice Jackson expressed her concern that the absence of certain specifics in Mexico’s lawsuit actually bolsters, rather than undercuts, Congress’s goal of protecting the gun industry via the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
Jackson alluded to PLCAA during an exchange with Mexico’s attorney Catherine Stetson, saying:
Ms. Stetson, I guess what I’m concerned about, you talked in response to Justice Kavanaugh about what PLCAA was about, what it was getting at, and I really thought, as the statute itself says, that it partially, at least, is about Congress protecting its own prerogative to be the one to regulate this industry, that there were concerns and the statute itself says that, you know, we’re worried that tort suits are an attempt to use the judicial branch to circumvent the legislative branch of government.
She added, “I worry that without that clarity in — in a — in a complaint like yours, where we don’t really see exactly how the manufacturers are violating a particular state or federal law, that we’re running up against the very concerns that motivated this statute to begin with.”
After a bit of back and forth, Jackson noted:
I mean, if you look at your lawsuit and what you’re asking for, you’re asking for changes to the firearm industry, safety practices, you say, not, you know, putting these kinds of constraints is a thing that should be — give rise to — give rise to liability, the distribution practices, the marketing, all of the things that you ask for in this lawsuit would amount to different kinds of regulatory constraints that I’m thinking Congress didn’t want the courts to be the ones to impose.
Smith & Wesson’s attorney, Noel Francisco, told SCOTUS Justices that Mexico’s claims against the gun maker are akin to holding beer makers liable for car accidents resulting from underage drinking.
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