haven't called your case yet so i'm sorry but i wish you good morning as well the first case is when humans versus roman army so we'll hear argument now the case came up on personal jurisdiction when i was transferred from the district of maryland and basically argued general as well as specific jurisdiction personal taken place a direct effect is is on the united states its its role marmes at selling the weapon to the united states is worthy intervening intervening clauses effect yes absolutely and one injury did you suffer because of the states if they could be there are all subject to the same the same law court had to do with cases where there were intervening clause the intervening acts that were taking place outside of the united states in some cases and in other cases where the injury the locus of the injuries were taking place outside of the united states and the plaintiffs were suing within the united states and they had no jurisdiction to do that under the  long in any of the has it's well depends on us definition of long but every case every motion every additional motion has been granted in terms of rule six i think we have to keep in mind if this case arises out of a criminal shooting of the criminal misuse of a product that is alleged to be non defective there's no claim in this case that the product had a defect there's no claim that acted negligently there's no claim in this case that will marm made any type of misrepresentation in every case would have been better if  been defective and not gone off for the for the plaintiffs that's for sure your honor but unfortunately it operated as it was designed it operated as was manufactured and unfortunately someone used it transported it legally into the district of columbia and then use it illegally to injure and kill the plaintiffs in this case among others which is a tragic event but again rome arm is a manufacturer of firearm small arms in romania it did not actually import the gun into the united states century arms one of its contractors in bought the products in romania import them into united states century which was perfectly legal under every law of the united states and of romania century then distributed that product to a distributor in ohio again perfectly legal nothing negligent about it in the pleadings and in fact that gun was then sold to a dealer in maryland again perfectly legal nothing negligent no claims of any wrongdoing and then that gun allegedly was sold to a purchaser in maryland again doing all the required paperwork following all the required laws the unknowns the unknown part of this case is how that gun made it from that and user into d c to commit the crime again that is the intervening those are the intervening acts that break the chain here for plaintiffs to bring this case against under the way you weren't claiming any benefit from the protection of lawful commerce in arms act you to the protections of this isn't that the wording in the statute it is however plaintiff tries to make an argument in his case that there's some sort of agency relationship between century and roll mom to bring rome arm before the jurisdiction of this court i would argue that if the court were to find that there was some sort of agency were some sort of protection of appeal ca then might be able to you know ride their backs on that issue technically though they're not a licensee and the p l c is limited to licensees i agree plaintiff's motion for a argument or or re argument to bring that up she denied it so judge reese was clearly of the opinion that that was not before her when we briefed in argued this motion originally the c three of the commercial activity exception is very narrow in terms of its interpretation of a direct effect it's much narrower than a traditional common law analysis of intervening cause i would take the position that this case we would have a very strong position to make a motion on an intervening cause just on a straight negligence case here with the intervening act but clearly under the much more narrow definition of that causal link contained in the direct effect clause it seems to clear to me that there's no way that there can be a direct effect between the manufacture of the gun and the injury sustained by the plaintiffs in this case beyond that even if you get it even if you were to get beyond the direct effect segment there's also the based upon a clause that they also have to meet so even if there is a direct effect which we don't believe there is you must find that the act is what's was is is to claim is based upon and that is the courts have said that you have to look at the gravel in  case and the gravity of this case which i think judge newman articulated is the criminal shooting it's not the manufacture it's not the importation the gravity of the case is a criminal shooting without that criminal shooting there is no case because there's no injury beyond the f s a there are a multitude of grounds to dismiss this case each ground has been brought up before every court the first two courts to hear this case done and the district of columbia and the district of maryland relied upon personal jurisdiction analyses to dismiss the judge in vermont relied upon the f s a but there are there are still personal jurisdiction issues in vermont there's a venue issue in vermont which is interesting intrinsically tied to the personal jurisdiction analysis complaint was never served upon rome arm mr mr webb hoff plaintiff's counsel affected service by sending counsel for rome arm in the d c cases which had been dismissed a letter saying please find and close the complaint that's the full statue of limitations the the the the claim that was brought in d c on the other hand you're here so on the other hand of the nation right in terms of what you're on i'm sorry personal service were here because we were removed without proper service which were permitted to do to try to get the case dismissed we never agreed to service we never signed any type of agreement i agree your honor if he had asked us to accept service and we'd agree that would not would not have been an issue that never occurred  a limitations the case when the case was dismissed by the district of columbia court and was eventually we filed in the state court in maryland it was beyond the three year statue limitations for any of these claims which is the largest statue of limitations for any of these claims the saving statute in maryland does not help here because the saving statute in maryland specifically says in the text that if a case is dismissed by the district court a federal district court you have thirty days to refile in the state court in maryland the complaint wasn't filed in the district in the state court in maryland in told more than nineteen months after the district court of d c dismissed the case finally i think the most interesting part of the case which the court never unconstitutional i'm happy to discuss that with you but clearly i think under gore the idea that you punish to a financial sanction for legal activity in romania legal activity in vermont legal activity in ohio  and legal activity in maryland is unconstitutional beyond that you can if you look at the legislative text of the strict liability act and even the plaintiffs brief in this case there the idea of the strict liability act is to effect a change of conduct in other parts of the country they want to make these guns illegal in every on the part of the country and the district of columbia is certainly allowed to do that and they have done that but they're not allowed under the constitution to tell vermont what to do to tell ohio what to do to tell what to any on the other fifty states what to do with respect to whether they make these types of firearms illegal or legal the vast majority of states in this country these firearms are perfectly legal this moment small segment of the states that do  the same law imposing strict liability for injuries caused by a baseball bat let hearing the last part of a baseball bat or let's f tells them to do and and when they come in here they are not a human to the laws of this country the laws of any state and the law of the district country is quite clear