cases involving firearms as this court is aware products liability actions in the state of louisiana are governed by the provisions of the louisiana products liability act the l a p l a a city of new orleans sought to shift the responsibility to pay for expenses associated with shootings in the city by imposing liability on firearms manufacturers the to achieve through litigation what the city could not accomplish through legislation the legislative history for house bill sixteen thirty nine makes it clear that the primary motivation the overarching motivation was to ensure that no new regulations and no new requirements could be imposed on firearms manufacturers unless those emanated from the legislature and not through a court decision as expressly noted in that legislative history and i quote here the bill was quote aimed at making it real clear the product liability law was never intended to make additional regulations on guns from this point forward any interpretation of this statute needs to be viewed through that lens that it was the intent of the legislature to make it real clear that products liability law was never intended to impose additional regulation on firearms manufacturers with that intent in mind section twenty eight hundred point sixty b was enacted which provides that no firearm manufacturer seller shall be liable for any injury damage or death resulting from any shooting injury by any other person a less the claimant proves and shows that such injury damage or death was proximately caused by the a reason the dangerous construction or composition of the product as provided in are asked nine coal and twenty eight hundred point fifty five which is defective manufacture the court went out issues with the law went out of its way to specify in single point fifty five defect in manufacturing thus after the statute was passed in cases where person is injured as a result of a shooting by another person the legislature has decided liability can only be proven under a theory of defect in manufacturing and this is completely consistent with the intent behind the law because to allow recovery under a theory such as defective design or to allow recovery under a theory like failure to warn would be to introduce the possibility that a third party such as a judge or jury could impose additional regulations on guns and this is precisely what the legislature knowingly decided to eliminate the factual background of this case in particular fits the circumstances of section b to a t it falls within the four corners of it here the plaintiff was injured when she was accidently shot by her father while they were walking through the woods at night pursuing it wounded deer apparently as they were moving through some heavy brush the rifle her father was carrying was hit by a tree branch and it fired hitting the plaintiff in her hip and elbow this injury occurred due to the direct violation of numerous safe gun handling rules including the fact that the father was walking through the woods at night carrying a loaded gun with a round chambered there was no need for this there was no need for him to be able to shoot this gun is continuously when there were searching for a wounded animal second he was walking behind his daughter without the safety on the rifle on third and perhaps most significantly he failed to follow the first rule of safe gun handling always keep the muzzle pointed away from other people if the father in this case had followed any one of those rules this injury would not have happened and investigation of this accident by the louisiana department of wildlife and fisheries noted that there were two factors that contributed to this accident number one the gun got caught on an object and number two the accident occurred due to careless or reckless handling of a firearm and afterwards they sent the firearm to the louisiana state police lap and they attempted to see if they could replicate this firearm firing without the trigger being poll and they could not the only way this gun would fire was if the trigger was pulled and this was consistent with the history of this firearm which had never gone off without the trigger being polled nevertheless despite all that testing the plaintiffs in this case brought a products liability action in which  realize i have no failure to warn claim here i dropped out so the only theory of liability left in this case was a defect in design and when the case was was reduced to that remington said wait a minute section sixty b eliminates that theory of liability the parties filed cross motions for summary judgment and that's how we are here today in an attempt to avoid the clear and unambiguous language of section point sixty the plaintiff basically raised two arguments number one she argues the statute is ambiguous second she argues that the statute reaches an absurd result neither of those have merit let me address each of them first on its face section sixty b is not ambiguous it clearly says that when a person is injured due to a shooting injury by another the firearms manufacturer can only be liable under a theory of defective manufacturing it could not be any clearer but to create an ambiguity with the plaintiff says is well let's look to other parts of this statute this approach violates at least three fundamental rules of statutory construction first the plain language rule which says that when a provision is clear and unambiguous it is to be applied as written with out reference to other parts of the statute their approach also runs counter to the rule that a preamble which is what section eight of the statute is that's where they think the ambiguity gets created from section it it is not part of the law and about the intent was and it's talking about no liability and so long as the design and the manufacturer are properly done so sees me don't want the intent to be that porn you want to plain language would be to control over the intent do you not know your honor i think it's actually both that there isn't a statutory construction say look at the plain language of the statute being don't look at anything else so why are you talking about intent but because i think ultimately your honor when you consider the intent and i will point this out the specific legislative history this points the fact that there wanted section b to do exactly what it sets which you know is that relevant if you think the language is arguing is that the plain language is all the controls and by the way it is consistent with what the legislature was trying to do with that doesn't really matter because the language is clear i think and i'm vegas that is exactly what we're saying is that the language is clear and unambiguous is section b it should be applied the way it is the plaintiff's attempt to create ambiguities five or third other sections of the statute and then all i'm simply saying is if this court decides that there is some reason to go beyond the plain language of the statute if the court wants to even entertain hypothetically the question of whether or not this statute is him they use or not the legislat history still supports this outcome and the reason that legislative history does is because of the intent behind that which was to curtail the theories of products liability recovery that could be used against a manufacture one of the other arguments i would like to point out as to why the statute is not ambiguous and it really wasn't it on specifically in the briefing but it was something that that occurred to me which is this is that if you're going to argue something is ambiguous you're saying that under an alternative interpretation of the statute i win here there is no alternative interpretation of section b under which the plaintiff win none the plaintiff cannot win under any alternative interpretation section b what the lower court did was to say i think it's in big us so now i get to ignore it you cannot do that you've got to say if there's an ambiguity then you've got to look at the various interpretations and decide which interpretation makes the most sense in conformance with the purpose of the law which is what civil code article ten says and the purpose of this law was to no i don't think this case does need to be certified to the louisiana supreme court and let me tell you why because the principles that our supreme court is going to apply in deciding whether or not this law should be applied as written are no different than what this court can apply there the ordinary rules of statutory construction that must be applied there's nothing in all due respect to our supreme court that is going to add that is unique from his perspective and statutory construction that this court cannot already do the supreme court would look at the plain language of the statute it would look to see whether or not the section that's claimed to be ambiguous is in the preamble it would eliminate that it would look at the specific over the general and say this statute is specific it's general it would also look to see what the purpose of the statute was all of those things this court is perfectly capable of doing without certifying the question to the louisiana supreme court looking just very briefly since judge southwick brought it up at the legislative history if you look at the colloquy that occurs here between justice i mean between senator hank old and they specifically consider whether section b should be amended to include a design defect claim and they didn't do it they did not end up including another exception for design defect and they could have easily done it the same way they did for manufacturing defect by including a specific reference to the statute number they could have said we're going to allow design defects under twenty eight hundred fifty six the same way they did with point fifty five and they didn't do it few principles of statutory construction are more compelling than the proposition that the legislature does not intend through its silence to a not statutory language that it is expressed in the considered and rejected this is the rejected propose a rule and it's clearly not within the province of a court to add in that language after the legislature considered it and rejected it but that's effectively what happened here finally let me address this my time is almost up the absurdity argument this primarily is based on the attention that well you're going to allow design did that claim a person interest in self but if another person injures you you don't get that claim there was some perfectly rational used rational reasons why the legislature could have drawn the line where they did primarily because they wanted to put responsibility for safe gun handling where it belongs on the person handling that firearm because they knew that even if there was some alleged defect with the gun if you handle that gun safely no one is going to get injured this legislature h completely eliminate any cause of action for defective design they didn't do it they drew the line where they did it's no different than the legislature drawing a line and saying you only have a year to follow tort claim they drew the line there that does turned in a trigger or something that might have contributed to the i know you're on our minds today is that there's no evidence of that that was their theory the experts theory of the plane to side was that in this particular part of the trigger called the trigger connector some dirt could conceivably get underneath that and cause an inadvertant gauge image of the gun however when this gun was examined later on c t x ray no evidence of any dirt was found in there that's their theory it would would not have been a manufacturing defect if they return there no your honor it would not have been a manufacturing defect there was no evidence that if any dirt existed it existed at the time it left the manufacturers control can bring an ordinary products liability claim including a theory of defective design and fair to warn if they injure themselves and so they drew the line that if one person if another person enters you we're going to say we want to put the responsibility on safe gun handling of that person and remember the murielle case absurd it's your honor is not absurd because they wanted to place the responsibility there the fact that they decided that a person who is handling a gun on their own can bring the case isn't absurd either they just decided that is where they were going to going to draw the line because the primary focus of the statute was to address the morea case which was shootings between two different people shootings between another person so there's no of certainty there it's simply where the legislature decided to draw that line think that the legislature crafted a statute that pretax third party shooters but doesn't protect somebody when they shoot themselves there is absolutely no logical basis for differentiating the clear ambiguity in subsection it would allow somebody to sue for a defective product under any theory or if they shoot themselves which mr burke at confirms essentially but to differentiate that and say that you cannot sue if you're being shot by a third person subsection b isn't an artful attempt but at attempt by the legislature to clarify that they were not trying to foreclose truly defective product claims you have to look at what was going on at the time there are fourteen states in the united states that have some form a statute that you could say is somewhat similar to what we're seeing here with the statute issues none of that including this one would preclude the type government subunits and an increasing number of individual plaintiffs began by windle turley and dallas who started these inherent really dangerous products that that a firearm because it can kill somebody can mai defective and dangerous basically by that simple design we've seen a manifestation of in the sandy hook it was the common law cases were uniformly defeated but some states including louisiana needs are and felt like they had to pass a statute to make it clear that we're not going to allow you simply to file a case because in a criminal act somebody was shocked anymore so then we're going to allow the municipalities to recoup their costs of police car and other public services that they incur because they have crime gun crime there was never any expectation or intent to limit a true product liability case the two keys of the statute are b s an artful attempt as consistent with a legislative intent to add back in private causes of action because what's really clear from subsection eat is where they really did clarify that  they only want to limit certain types of design claims and indeed they actually tell us specific types of design claims that they don't want to allow such as what's called a chamber indicator which tells a handler of a gun when i've got a loaded gun there's an indicator that says there is a cartridge in the chamber they also wanted they precluded and these are probably efforts to regulate the gun industry they  precluded the kind of grip sensors that allow that where a handgun for example can only be used by the owner because the grip is sensitive to that individual owners grip otherwise you don't need the statute has to be read as a whole right we don't want to single out sub part b some part b is confusing in itself because it's first unclear as to what is meant by others and that is where legislative history as further manifested in what they keep wanting to call the preamble i just call it subsection a makes it clear that their intent was did not allow people to sue for the m proper use a properly designed firearm mr catlin to great lengths to tell you what the facts of this case what he didn't tell you is that this case is the product of over forty years and hundreds of similar cases backed up by crack houses of individual customer complaints of precisely this kind of the thing this is not a unique case and their defense is what your argument runs up against is whatever in or from this is that even applicable here to the praising the be in the reference to other person it is clear as it can be that there's no design statement in there and i don't know what to make of legislative history on a louisiana statutory interpretation but apparently was an effort by the debriefing described it was mentioned again today to add design in as an additional bases and it was rejected so we got  have to have a chamber indicator or a design that says that you have to have a grip sensor or in subsection e where you are specifically now disallowing certain warning claims why do you need the plans and the design in the legislative history is consistent with that because our representatives philly's is clear when he says you know essentially that they want to preserve what would be produced no product liability claims they just want to get rid of the ones for these general inherently defective inherently dangerous types of theories that were prominent at the time it was it was clearly an in artful attempt but i think b b was there for their beer in artful attempt to basically make clear that they didn't want to allow individual product liability claims they just didn't do a very good job of drafting it but you can tell through their discussions and through the other provisions they really only wanted to preclude certain types of design cla it for example if i shoot my dog and the theory that my daughter would then advance against smith and wesson for example is that i didn't have some kind of us grip that i think is directly pertinent to this issue they make it clear that they were clarifying the product liability statute they were abrogating it with respect to firearms they were clarifying it with respect to firearms and if you looked at saying composition is just a characteristic which is the language in subsection point five to so the bottom line is that clearly the legislature in their in their  legislative history had articulated a desire to preserve true what i would call a true product liability class those that would always have been recognized under subsection point five two and it's clear in what we have called your the preamble if that is the intent is to only restrict certain types of claims not traditional product liability claims but those that would involv improper he's of a properly designed designed farm i used my smith and wesson to hold up the quick trip stork and somebody sees smith and wesson claiming that they sold the defective product and there's nothing specifically about the functioning of that firearm that led to that  structure a competent which as under that statute is to find that the the product must meet the manufacturer's own performance specifications and standards at the time leaves the manufacturers control so the use of the word composition your or composition again i would put the word composition quotes because i think it's sort of a term of art that's been used in the lp away in the design of the in the manufacturing defect context that so long as that product left the manufacturer design made exactly the way it was intended to be made according to the manufacturer's own performance specifications and standards then there is no defect in construction or composition under that particular theory you keep the thank you your honor i wanted to just pacifically address as i start here one aspect of this if the legislature had wanted to preserve a design defect claim in the way that mr monsey sets then why not include a reference to section twenty eight hundred point fifty six in sub par be exactly the way they did with section twenty eight hundred point fifty five if that was their intent was to preserve a design defect claim they could have easily done that the reality is that's exactly the opposite of what they did and the colloquy between senators hankel and dan proves that they specifically addressed under section b whether they should also consider including another exception for design and that never made it into the statute and that makes perfect sense because as you will generally allow designed effects you are generally allowing the possibility that other regulations could be enacted for a firearm through a court decision or through a jury verdict any colloquy to support your interpretation of b and the meaning of the third any other person sure you want to be happy to share that with the court was anything in legislative talk about a particular colloquy that discussed adding design feature was discussion about whether any other person is talking about if you shoot yourself you still have the claim no there isn't anything specific you're on it's a great question there is nothing specific and you can believe we scoured it for anything in the legislative history that particularly indicates why in section b they used the term shooting of another person however when you remember the context of this statute and why it was enacted in response to the more allocates which involved the city trying to impose liability on gun manufacturers for shootings occurring between different people it makes perfect sense the section b was worded the way that it was because they were trying to address shootings from one person to another person so the fact that section b is worded that way is really very consistent with what the intent was responding to the morea lawsuit i've only got forty five seconds left in conclusion if you look at the play this brief their whole case comes down to the following argument that the letter of subsection b give way to the spirit of section nine colon twenty eight hundred point sixty but this spirit argument is fundamentally flawed in two ways first louisiana a by statute one cold in four says the when the wording of a section is clear and free of ambiguity the letter of it shall not be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing its spirit here the letter of this law could not be clearer second if you look at that legislative history the spirit behind the statute was clearly to curtail products liability actions against manufacturers not to merely clarified that they still exist so in this case we respect to suggest that the district court should