Court Sides with Gun Makers.(California Supreme Court dismisses Merrill v. Navegar case)(Brief Article)

A high-profile shooting incident in 1993 helped instigate the litany of lawsuits against firearm manufacturers by sundry cities, counties, and states. On July 1st of that year, Gian Luigi Fern opened fire in a San Francisco skyscraper, killing eight people, wounding six, then killing himself. He was armed with two TEC-DC9 pistols and a revolver. Families of the victims filed suit against Miami-based Navegar Inc. (maker of the TEC-DC9s), claiming that the company had marketed the weapons in ways that appealed to criminals, and that it should have foreseen that they would be used in a massacre.

A judge dismissed the case (Merrill v. Navegar) in 1997, but two years later California's First District Court of Appeals revived it, holding that the survivors were entitled to a trial. On August 6th of this year, however, the California Supreme Court (by a vote of 5 to 1) reversed the district tribunal. Its ruling was predicated on a 1983 state law which provides that firearm manufacturers may not be held liable in product liability actions on "the basis ...