Everytown Law Marks 20th Lawsuit Filed to Hold Gun Industry Bad Actors Accountable by Publishing First-of-Its-Kind How-to Manual for Those Seeking to Follow Suit
10.28.2024
NEW YORK – Everytown Law today published a first-of-its-kind legal guide on firearms accountability litigation, focused on an industry that for too long has viewed itself as immune from civil litigation. The guidebook comes just weeks after Everytown Law filed its nineteenth and twentieth lawsuits seeking to hold members of the gun industry accountable for unlawful and reckless conduct contributing to gun violence across the country.
Titled “Firearms Litigation: A Practitioner’s Guide to PLCAA and Beyond,” the 100-page guidebook aims to help litigators bring civil litigation on behalf of survivors and victims of gun violence. These lawsuits seek justice and accountability from manufacturers, distributors, and dealers of firearms and ammunition that engage in unlawful and wrongful conduct. The Guide provides a legal overview of successful strategies and techniques for holding bad actors accountable for their actions, despite the broad – but not unlimited – immunity provided by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
The nineteenth lawsuit was filed in September in Maryland with the Attorneys General of the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland to hold three Maryland-based gun dealers accountable for allegedly facilitating interstate gun trafficking. The twentieth, also filed in September, was brought in Minnesota against a large, midwest retail chain alleged to have negligently entrusted a handgun to an underage teenager, resulting in his death by suicide.
“Everytown Law is committed to seeking justice and accountability in court for victims and survivors of gun violence,” said Eric Tirschwell, Executive Director and Chief Litigation Counsel at Everytown Law. “With the release of our new legal guidebook, we hope to provide an important resource to support the many other members of the bar who are doing this life-saving work to hold reckless and irresponsible members of the gun industry accountable – including state Attorneys General, major corporate law firms, plaintiffs’ firms large and small, and city attorneys.”
Available here, the guidebook introduction reads, “Holding members of the firearms industry accountable for their own misconduct can not only provide your client with some measure of justice, but it can also have a meaningful impact on the safety of your community and the nation by incentivizing the industry to reform its most reckless business practices. Cases against the gun industry can succeed, but they face challenges that are not present in lawsuits against any other industry. This manual will help you identify and overcome these obstacles—and win.”
Of the 20 cases Everytown Law has filed to hold bad actors in the gun industry accountable since late 2019, many have already led to favorable outcomes. While a number of settlements are confidential, public highlights include:
- In partnership with the Los Angeles City Attorney and Quinn Emmanuel, Everytown Law won a $5-million-dollar settlement in its lawsuit against Polymer80, the largest distributor of make-at-home ghost gun kits that were being sold without background checks or serial numbers and were being recovered at Los Angeles crime scenes in dramatically increasing numbers. In addition to the $5-million penalty, Polymer80 agreed to stop selling these untraceable and illegal guns into the state of California. The settlement followed multiple unsuccessful attempts by Polymer80 to have the lawsuit thrown out under PLCAA. Polymer80 recently shuttered following numerous legal and regulatory challenges.
- On behalf of Sabika Aziz Sheikh, a 17-year-old exchange student killed in the Santa Fe, Texas, high school mass shooting in 2018, Everytown Law joined with Texas counsel and families of other murdered and injured students and teachers to sue online ammunition seller LuckyGunner, which sold the 17-year-old shooter ammunition that he was too young to legally purchase. In a first-of-its-kind agreement, the settlement requires the company to maintain an age verification system at the point of sale for all ammunition sales. Additional terms of the settlement are confidential.
- In a case brought on behalf of Kansas City, Missouri, and the state of Illinois against the ATF, Everytown Law (along with Cravath Swaine & Moore and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office) persuaded the ATF to revoke the federal firearms license granted to J.A. Industries, a gun manufacturer that made cheap pistols favored by criminals and that was run by an individual alleged to have violated multiple firearms laws and made misleading statements in connection with licensing applications.
- On the eve of trial, Everytown Law secured a settlement against a Kansas City, Missouri, gun dealer that it had sued for facilitating illegal transfers to a gun trafficker. The settlement requires the store to establish and enforce a set of written policies to prevent trafficking and straw-purchasing and includes a 5-year verification program with an independent monitor.
- For two Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputies who were ambushed and shot repeatedly by a convicted felon wielding a Polymer80 ghost gun, Everytown Law negotiated a favorable settlement as the trial date was approaching.
In 2024 thus far, Everytown Law has filed a total of five lawsuits against gun industry defendants:
- On behalf of the City of Chicago, Everytown Law joined with Motley Rice and the Chicago City Attorney to sue Glock for failing to take reasonable steps to prevent its pistols from being converted to illegal machine guns, as well as two area gun retailers for distributing and promoting such weapons.
- On behalf of victims and survivors of the 2023 Old National Bank shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, Everytown Law joined with Romanucci & Blandin and the Kentucky-based Thomas Law Offices to sue the gun dealer that sold an assault weapon and accessories to someone who posed an obvious risk of harm, as well as suing the manufacturer and distributor of the deadly accessories for failing to take reasonable steps to ensure that the purchasers of their products were fit to use and possess them.
- On behalf of a survivor of a ghost shooting in Michigan, Everytown Law joined with Bloch & White and the University of Michigan Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic to sue a leading online ghost gun ghost gun distributor, JSD Supply, for selling a gun-building kit without any age verification to an 18-year-old who was too young to legally purchase such a weapon.
In total, Everytown Law is currently working as counsel of record in 15 pending lawsuits against the gun industry – including cases against the biggest manufacturers (Glock (x2)), Smith & Wesson (on behalf of survivors of the 2022 Highland Park 4th of July mass shooting), Sturm Ruger (on behalf of survivors of the 2021 King Soopers, Colorado, mass shooting), and Daniel Defense (on behalf of the survivors of the 2022 Uvalde mass school shooting), eight gun retailers in the Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, Louisville, and Minneapolis areas, and multiple distributors of so-called ghost gun kits.
Everytown Law began as a team of three litigators in 2017, and has grown to a team of 32, including 26 litigators, as of the fall of 2024. The team is led by seasoned trial lawyers with decades of courtroom experience in civil and criminal cases, including former federal prosecutors, assistant attorneys general, and law firm partners.