Jury Awards Mother $104 Million in Damages Against Online Ghost-Gun Companies that Sold her Underaged Son a Firearm Kit, Resulting in his Death by Suicide

A Kentucky jury awarded $4.2 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to Laura Herp, the mother of 18-year-old Henry Willis, who died by suicide after an online, unlicensed gun seller sold and shipped him a ghost gun kit even though Henry was too young to legally purchase a handgun from a licensed dealer and was otherwise prohibited from buying or possessing firearms.  Everytown Law, along with the Thomas Law Offices, represents Ms. Herp in her suit on behalf of Henry’s estate against the gun seller, Husky Armory LLC, and its parent company, Up North Media LLC.

The $104.2 million award is believed to be the largest damages verdict ever rendered against a gun dealer in U.S. history.

The damages trial took place after the trial court entered an order granting default judgment in favor of Ms. Herp on October 24, 2025. Defendants Husky Armory LLC and Up North Media LLC never appeared in court to defend themselves.

The complaint, filed on July 28, 2025, alleged that on July 6, 2023, Defendants illegally sold Henry a ghost-gun-building kit through their website. A law-abiding, licensed firearms seller would not have sold Henry a handgun for at least two reasons: (i) he was too young under federal law at age 18; and (ii) he would have failed a legally required background check. But, the lawsuit alleged, Defendants sold handgun kits to anyone willing to pay for them. Just six days after receiving the kit by mail, Henry used the handgun he built from it to end his own life.

The lawsuit alleged that the firearm kit Defendants sold Henry included “everything you need to build your own Glock style pistol from the comfort of your home.” Because the kit was designed to and could readily be converted to operate as a gun, it was a firearm under federal law. Indeed, the kit included a nearly finished Polymer80 Glock-style frame — the same type at the heart of the recent United States Supreme Court ruling in Bondi v. VanDerStok, which affirmed that such kits and frames are legally firearms, and that their sale must comply with all relevant requirements under federal law—including background checks, transfers only through licensed dealers, and prohibition on sale to underaged and otherwise restricted purchasers. In short, the lawsuit alleged that Defendants’ violation of gun safety laws resulted in exactly the kind of tragedy those laws were intended to prevent.

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