The court agreed with WLF’s argument made in a brief filed in June 1997, that under most circumstances, manufacturers are not liable for damages when a criminal uses their products to injure others. In a case arising out of the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building explosion, the court agreed with WLF’s argument that intervening criminal acts break the causal chain between a company’s sale of a product and later injuries, such that the company cannot be said to have “caused” the injury. The suit was brought against the manufacturer whose ammonium nitrate fertilizer was allegedly used by Timothy McVeigh in making the bomb that blew up the Oklahoma City federal building.
