Handguns and Meat?

May 1, 2001

A New York Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of several handgun manufacturers in a case in which the American Meat Institute had participated along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Washington Legal Foundation and a host of other groups as a "friend of the court."

AMI participated as a friend of the court because the plaintiffs had sought to have liability assigned to a group of companies based on their market share. "AMI opposes the spread of such a market-share liability theory," the institute said.

The appellate court held, however, that liability may not be apportioned among the manufacturers according to their share of the market in cases such as this, citing the unique facts of a 1989 case in which market share was used to apportion liability to a group of companies. The court also exonerated the companies with respect to how they marketed and distributed their products and ruled that the companies did not have a duty to control the conduct of third persons to prevent harm to others with respect to those products.

There was no reason to depart from the traditional principles of tort law requiring a plaintiff to prove a particular product caused an injury, the appeals court ruled.