“The First Circuit’s decision jettisons two foundations of tort law.”
—Cory Andrews, WLF General Counsel & Vice President of Litigation

Click here for WLF’s brief.

WASHINGTON, DC— Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in a controversial tort case.

The case arises from the drug-cartel violence currently disrupting daily life in Mexico. Rather than seize cartel assets to fund more police, Mexico sued several U.S. firearms manufacturers for allegedly causing the violence. According to Mexico, the firearms manufacturers should have stopped making AR-15s, imposed universal background checks, and stopped citizens from buying more than one firearm. Their failure to do so, Mexico alleges, allowed for the straw purchase of firearms and the smuggling of those firearms into Mexico. From there, drug cartels used the firearms to commit violent crimes, leading to the increased spending by Mexico.

In its amicus brief supporting the firearms manufacturers, WLF argues that Mexico failed to plead proximate cause. Mexico’s eight-step Rube-Goldberg theory of proximate cause fails at every step. The firearms manufacturers’ legal conduct of making and selling firearms was not the proximate cause of Mexico’s injuries. The attenuated causal chain included intervening criminal actions and resulted in only derivative harm. The Supreme Court has held that is insufficient to plead proximate cause.

The brief also describes why the First Circuit’s holding that the firearms manufacturers can be held liable for aiding-and-abetting liability is wrong. Just last term in Twitter v. Taamneh, the Supreme Court held that companies cannot be held liable under an aiding-and-abetting theory when criminals use lawful products in an unlawful manner. Here, Mexico alleges that the firearms manufacturers can be held liable for making and selling lawful products that criminals misused. As that conflicts with Twitter, the Court should reverse the decision below.