No new cert petitions filed this week. The Court had scheduled Morin v. Lyver for conference last Friday, but then asked for a response, which is due May 12. We’re also still waiting for something to happen with Aposhian. Other than that, two pending case have been scheduled for conference and we await Bruen any day […]
In a remarkably interesting decision issued a few weeks back, a federal district court in Kentucky declined to dismiss a lawsuit for wrongful discharge based on Kentucky laws that forbid employers from taking adverse action against employees who store guns in their cars in the company’s lot. In Sheard v. Novo Nordisk, Inc., No. 3:20-CV-152-BJB […]
Many states are becoming territorial about their residents. So territorial, in fact, that at least some legislators are proposing ways to functionally use their state’s criminal code extraterritorially. Proposals to criminalize conduct that facilitates women seeking abortion care outside the state have cropped up in Missouri. Other states target different sorts of conduct they deem […]
Just one new firearms-law petition that’s really only tangentially related, and is likely to go nowhere. In Turner v. Brannon-Dortch, the petitioner asks the Court to decide whether “a defendant who legally possesses a firearm for the purpose of self-defense can, consistent with the second amendment, be accused in his criminal murder trial of illegally […]
We are thrilled to announce the Center’s new Research Affiliate for the 2022-23 year: Joshua Aiken. Josh is a J.D./Ph.D. in History and African-American Studies at Yale. Below is his description of the dissertation project he’s working on. We’re happy to welcome Josh to his affiliation with the Center! My dissertation project, tentatively titled The […]
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), codified at 15 U.S.C. § 7901 et seq., has nearly banished the specter of civil liability for covered gun industry entities. PLCAA was predicated on the claim that gun industry actors, including firearm manufacturers and sellers, were under siege from baseless lawsuits founded on novel legal […]
1. Introduction In 2005, the U.S. Congress bestowed on gun makers and sellers broad immunity from civil lawsuits by enacting the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). Congress explicitly based this immunity on the need to protect Second Amendment rights, pitting defenders of those rights against victims of criminal gun violence seeking to […]
No new petitions this week, and the Court didn’t hold a conference last week, so no new orders list. Aposhian is still lingering in a strange limbo. A couple of the cases have had some pretty significant cert-stage amicus action, including Bianchi, Duncan, and GOA, with each of those cases garnering multiple amici plus an […]
Over a recent five week period, $430 million was awarded to victims of gun violence in court cases: a federal judge in Texas ordered the Air Force to pay $230 million to victims of the Sutherland Springs church shooting; the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to pay $127 million to victims of the Parkland High […]
When gun manufacturers or dealers face civil liability for misuse of firearms, the liability costs eventually shift to investors (shareholders or owners), liability insurers, commercial lenders, or creditors (the debts they own now carry more risk), and indirectly to future customers, who may face price increases. Financial institutions (which I will call “banks,” though this […]