A question for our legal experts - suing for not being able to carry

[Wildalaska]

I'm sure not saying it's an easy case to win.

Win? It wouldnt survive a Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim...and if it did, it wouldnt survive Summary Judgement.


WildatotalloserAlaska ™©2002-2011

 

[Al Norris]

The plaintiff in such a case, would be claiming that if not for the defendants policies, the plaintiff would have been armed and may have been able to defend himself.

That's it in a nutshell.

The Court deals in concrete facts. The courts do not deal in maybes and shoulda-woulda-coulda. The Court does not deal in hypotheticals. There is nothing in the claim except hypothetical negligence on the part of the defendant.

 

[zukiphile]

I tend to agree that the defendant will most likely have the best data.

General statistical data or about the specific incident?

I would expect a plaintiff to have better access to information about what is happening before he is attacked. Did you see your assailant approach you? Did you permit an argument to escalate after he spoke to you? When he asked for your wallet did you give it to him?

Constructing a causal chain between a non-carry policy and a specific injury will always involve some very weak links. (That doesn't mean that a plaintiff could never prevail as tobacco cases and your Denny's case indicate. You mean the label on the box that said I could get cancer meant I might get cancer? I must have missed that the last 20,000 times I bought them. )

Consider the Denny's case near Seattle. The plaintiff was able to put on considerable evidence that Denny's was on notice about special risks created by its policy of staying open in the early morning hours.

Where an gunshot injury follows in an area with a non-carry policy, the assailant presumably acted contrary to the policy. Tough to argue effectively that an owner's explicit policy being violated is something for which the owner should have civil liability because of the foreseeability that someone may ignore the policy.

But Zuk, that's exactly why carry prohibitions generally are a bad idea. Rule followers, the safe people, are disarmed, and the generally more dangerous go armed anyway.

Certainly, but that is a policy argument rather than one for civil liability. I dislike the whole idea of a property owner being liable for any third party shooting, but that doesn't make a non-carry policy equally vulnerable under an ordinary civil analysis, imho.

 

[Frank Ettin]

I tend to agree that the defendant will most likely have the best data.

General statistical data or about the specific incident?

Data about any factors suggesting a special risk at the location. That's what was significant about the Denny's case. Denny's had accumulated data on the frequency of violent incidents at some of its locations (including the one involved) which indicated that Denny's restaurants were an especially dangerous place to be in the early morning hours.