IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

FORT WORTH DIVISION

JENNIFER VANDERSTOK; 

MICHAEL G. ANDREN; 

TACTICAL MACHINING, LLC, a limited liability 

company; and 

FIREARMS POLICY COALITION, INC., a 

nonprofit corporation,

Plaintiffs,

and

BLACKHAWK MANUFACTURING GROUP 

INC. d/b/a 80 PERCENT ARMS,

Applicant in Intervention,

v.

MERRICK GARLAND, in his official capacity as 

Attorney General of the United States; 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; 

STEVEN DETTELBACH, in his official capacity as 

Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 

Firearms and Explosives; and 

BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, 

FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES,

Defendants.

 Civil Action No. 4:22-cv-00691-O

BLACKHAWK MANUFACTURING GROUP INC. d/b/a 80 PERCENT ARMS’ 

REPLY IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO INTERVENE

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1

I. BLACKHAWK SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO INTERVENE AS A MATTER 

OF RIGHT............................................................................................................................... 2

A. BlackHawk’s Motion Was Timely Filed ......................................................................... 2

B. There Is No Prejudice to Existing Parties but Unmistakable Prejudice to 

BlackHawk....................................................................................................................... 4

C. BlackHawk Has a Protectible Interest That Will Be Impaired If Not Allowed 

to Intervene ...................................................................................................................... 5

D. BlackHawk’s Interest Are Not Adequately Represented in This Litigation.................... 7

II. BLACKHAWK HAS MET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR PERMISSIVE 

INTERVENTION ................................................................................................................... 9

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................. 10

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE ..................................................................................................... 12

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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Adam Joseph Res. v. CNA Metals Ltd., 

919 F.3d 856 (5th Cir. 2019)...................................................................................................... 4

Association of Professional Flight Attendants v. Gibbs, 

804 F.2d 318 (5th Cir. 1986)...................................................................................................... 2

B.H. v. McDonald, 

49 F.3d 294 (7th Cir. 1995)........................................................................................................ 7

Brumfield v. Dodd, 

749 F.3d 339 (5th Cir. 2014)...................................................................................................... 5

City of Syracuse, NY v. ATF, 

No. 1:20-CV-06885-GHW, 2021 WL 1051625 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 19, 2021)............................... 3

Division 80 v. Garland, et al., 

Case No. 3:22-cv-00148 (S.D. Tex.).......................................................................................... 4

Fairholme Funds, Inc. v. United States, 

681 F. App’x 945 (Fed. Cir. 2017)............................................................................................. 8

Field v. Anadarko Petroleum Corp., 

35 F.4th 1013 (5th Cir. 2022)................................................................................................. 3, 8

In re Lease Oil Antitrust Litig., 

570 F.3d 244 (5th Cir. 2009).................................................................................................. 2, 5

Larson v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 

530 F.3d 578 (7th Cir. 2008)................................................................................................ 9, 10

League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. Clements, 

884 F.2d 185 (5th Cir. 1989)...................................................................................................... 9

Missouri Coal. for the Env’t Found. v. Wheeler, 

No. 2:19-CV-4215-NKL, 2020 WL 9215898 (W.D. Mo. Aug. 15, 2020) .............................. 10

Nat’l Ass’n for Advancement of Colored People v. New York, 

413 U.S. 345 (1973) ................................................................................................................... 3

Richardson v. Flores, 

979 F.3d 1102 (5th Cir. 2020).................................................................................................. 10

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S.E.C. v. Credit Bancorp, Ltd., 

No. 99 CIV. 11395 (RWS), 2000 WL 1170136 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 16, 2000) .............................. 3

Second Baptist Church v. City of San Antonio, 

No. 5:20-CV-29-DAE, 2020 WL 6821324 (W.D. Tex. Apr. 17, 2020) .............................. 8, 10

Sierra Club v. Espy, 

18 F.3d 1202 (5th Cir. 1994).................................................................................................. 3, 5

St. Bernard Par. v. Lafarge N. Am., Inc., 

914 F.3d 969 (5th Cir. 2019)...................................................................................................... 7

Symetra Life Ins. Co. v. Rapid Settlements Ltd., 

No. CIV.A. H-05-3167, 2006 WL 2382250 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 16, 2006).................................... 7

United States v. Texas E. Transmission Corp., 

923 F.2d 410 (5th Cir. 1991).............................................................................................. 6, 7, 8

U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n v. Wellpath LLC, 

No. 5:20-CV-1092-DAE, 2021 WL 4096556 (W.D. Tex. Mar. 15, 2021).............................. 10

Utahns for Better Transp. v. U.S. Dept. of Transp., 

295 F.3d 1111 (10th Cir. 2002).................................................................................................. 7

Warren v. Comm’r,

302 F.3d 1012 (9th Cir. 2002)................................................................................................... 8

Werbungs Und Commerz Union Austalt v. Collectors’ Guild, Ltd., 

782 F. Supp. 870 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) ............................................................................................. 3

Rules

Fed. R. Civ. P. 24...................................................................................................................Passim

 

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INTRODUCTION

Defendants’ Opposition (“Opposition”) to BlackHawk Manufacturing Group Inc. d/b/a 80 

Percent Arms’ (“BlackHawk”) Motion to Intervene (“Motion”) fails to establish that BlackHawk’s 

Motion is untimely. Defendants cite Fifth Circuit case law directing that “timeliness be determined 

based on all the circumstances,” ECF No. 96 (Opp’n) at 2 (emphasis in original), but Defendants 

present only a narrow discussion of events drawn from outside this proceeding and occurring 

before the effective date of the Final Rule and ignore he circumstances most relevant to the 

timeliness of BlackHawk’s Motion in this proceeding. 

Likewise, Defendants assert that BlackHawk will suffer no prejudice by denial of its 

Motion because it can simply file its own lawsuit. But contrary to Defendants’ contention, the 

argument that a party can simply file its own lawsuit has never been a basis to deny intervention 

in the Fifth Circuit or elsewhere. After all, that argument can be made for virtually every putative 

intervenor and, if that were the standard, it would contradict well-established Fifth Circuit law 

broadly permitting intervention and wholly ignore the balance the rule attempts to strike. See

United States v. Texas E. Transmission Corp., 923 F.2d 410, 412 (5th Cir. 1991) (finding “Rule 

24 represents an accommodation between two potentially conflicting goals: to achieve judicial 

economies of scale by resolving related issues in a single lawsuit, and to prevent the single lawsuit 

from becoming fruitlessly complex or unending.”).

Defendants also claim that BlackHawk’s interests are adequately represented by 

BlackHawk’s market competitor and Plaintiff Tactical Machining, and that any divergence of 

interests between these competitors are not “germane to the case.” Opp’n at 12 (citing and 

emphasizing quote from case). However, it is patently obvious that Tactical Machining’s interests 

already diverge from BlackHawk as Tactical Machining currently is the beneficiary of injunctive 

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relief already granted by the Court and will presumably continue to enjoy said relief (and likely 

make litigation decisions in light of it) during the pendency of this litigation. In contrast, 

BlackHawk is unlikely to survive the pendency of this proceeding—a distinction to which 

Defendants’ only response is to offer criticism about what they believe BlackHawk could have or 

should have done to avoid the circumstances created by the Final Rule taking effect. 

In sum, Defendants’ Opposition offers the Court little more than a lengthy-but-generic 

recitation of inapposite caselaw and legal conclusions that fail to refute the substantive arguments 

in BlackHawk’s Brief in Support of the Motion (“Brief”). Defendants’ Opposition hypothesizes 

over litigation strategy, proffers self-serving arguments concerning delay in this matter and the 

protection of BlackHawk’s interests, and wholly ignores Defendants’ own efforts to ensure 

BlackHawk’s interests are not adequately represented in this litigation. See Br. at 8; ECF No. 72 

at 10 n.13 (Defendants asserting that “[b]ecause Plaintiffs do not establish associational standing 

on behalf of FPC’s members, there is no basis to issue an injunction to BlackHawk Manufacturing 

Group, Inc., for example, or any other entity that is a member of FPC but is not a party to this 

action in its own right”). Ultimately, Defendants have failed to give this Court grounds to deviate 

from the long-established standards of the Fifth Circuit, where “[r]ule 24 is to be construed 

liberally, . . . and doubts resolved in favor of the proposed intervenor.” In re Lease Oil Antitrust 

Litig., 570 F.3d 244, 248 (5th Cir. 2009). This Court should therefore grant BlackHawk’s Motion.

I. BLACKHAWK SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO INTERVENE AS A MATTER OF 

RIGHT

A. BlackHawk’s Motion Was Timely Filed

Defendants’ timeliness argument invites the Court to engage in a speculative analysis of 

BlackHawk’s actions against the backdrop of litigation challenging the Final Rule occurring 

elsewhere. However, Defendants’ fail to provide legal support for the notion that intervention can 

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be denied because the movant did not intervene in a wholly separate matter in another district. The 

question is whether BlackHawk’s motion to intervene in this proceeding is timely. See In re Lease 

Oil Antitrust Litig., 570 F.3d at 248 (in evaluating the timeliness of a motion to intervene, the Fifth 

Circuit analyzes the length of time during which the would-be intervenor actually knew or 

reasonably should have known of its interest in the case it seeks intervention before it moved to 

intervene in said case); Association of Professional Flight Attendants v. Gibbs, 804 F.2d 318, 320–

21 (5th Cir. 1986) (applying the same Fifth Circuit test that evaluates timeliness against the 

backdrop of the case in which the moving party seeks to intervene).

Defendants characterize the timing of BlackHawk’s Motion as “tactical behavior” that the 

Court should not reward, Opp’n at 6, 15, and, curiously, cite City of Syracuse, NY v. ATF, No. 

1:20-CV-06885-GHW, 2021 WL 1051625, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 19, 2021), as support for this 

contention. The court in City of Syracuse reached a conclusion contrary to Defendants’ argument, 

finding that “[t]he length of time [four months] between Polymer80’s knowledge of the action and 

its request to intervene does not weigh heavily against a finding of timeliness.” 2021 WL 1051625 

at *5. Further, the City of Syracuse court noted that “there is no specific length of time that has 

been deemed to be the appropriate time period in which to file a motion to intervene” and cited 

other illustrative decisions.1

1 “See, e.g., S.E.C. v. Credit Bancorp, Ltd., No. 99 CIV. 11395 (RWS), 2000 WL 1170136, at *2 

(S.D.N.Y. Aug. 16, 2000) (noting that for a motion to intervene under Rule 24, a five-month delay 

“was not so protracted as to render [the] motion untimely under all the circumstances”); Werbungs 

Und Commerz Union Austalt v. Collectors’ Guild, Ltd., 782 F. Supp. 870, 874 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) 

(application timely when filed almost two years after notice of interest in the case, because 

proposed intervenors filed after interest became direct).” City of Syracuse, 2021 WL 1051625 at 

*4. (citing Nat’l Ass’n for Advancement of Colored People v. New York, 413 U.S. 345, 366–69 

(1973) (application untimely when filed four months after suit commenced and suit had reached a 

critical stage)).

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BlackHawk filed its motion to intervene within a month of the Final Rule going into effect 

and promptly after this Court issued its preliminary injunction with respect to Tactical Machining,

at which time BlackHawk “became aware that its interests would no longer be protected by the 

original parties.” Sierra Club v. Espy, 18 F.3d 1202, 1206 (5th Cir. 1994). “Generally, filing a 

motion to intervene as soon as an intervenor realizes its interests are not adequately protected is 

sufficient to meet the timeliness requirement.” Field v. Anadarko Petroleum Corp., 35 F.4th 1013, 

1018 (5th Cir. 2022).

Further, this litigation remains in its infancy, and the timing of BlackHawk’s Motion does 

not prejudice the existing parties: Plaintiffs on October 5, 2022, filed an Amended Complaint, ECF 

No. 93, and Defendants have yet to respond to it; no dispositive motions have been filed; 

production of the administrative record has been ordered but has yet to be produced;

2 no discovery 

has been conducted; the parties have only recently begun submitting their joint report regarding 

the contents of scheduling order, ECF No. 95; a scheduling order that BlackHawk has informed 

the Plaintiffs it would comply with; and no trial date has been set. “The requirement of timeliness 

is not a tool of retribution to punish the tardy would-be intervenor, but rather a guard against 

prejudicing the original parties by failure to apply sooner[.]” Adam Joseph Res. v. CNA Metals 

Ltd., 919 F.3d 856, 865 (5th Cir. 2019). 

B. There Is No Prejudice to Existing Parties but Unmistakable Prejudice to 

BlackHawk

Defendants’ Opposition fails to demonstrate anything more than speculative, minor 

inconvenience to a group (the U.S. Department of Justice) with unlimited resources. However, the 

2 Only four days ago Defendants requested additional time to produce the administrative record in 

the proceeding in the Southern District of Texas. See ECF No. 80, Division 80 v. Garland, et al., 

Case No. 3:22-cv-00148 (S.D. Tex.).

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relevant prejudice inquiry is whether the existing parties would be prejudiced by the intervenor’s 

delay in seeking intervention—if any—“not the inconvenience to the existing parties of allowing 

the intervenor to participate.” Adam Joseph Resources, 919 F.3d at 865; In re Lease Oil Antitrust 

Litigation, 570 F.3d at 248 (“Any potential prejudice caused by the intervention itself is irrelevant, 

because it would have occurred regardless of whether the intervention was timely . . . . The only 

proper concern is how much more prejudice would come from Texas’s intervening in January 

2008 compared to its intervening in March 2006.”); Sierra Club, 18 F.3d at 1206 (“prejudice must 

be measured by the delay in seeking intervention, not the inconvenience to the existing parties of 

allowing the intervenor to participate in the litigation.”). That is, whether there is prejudice from 

the fact that there is an intervention at all is not the analysis. 

In contrast, the prejudice to BlackHawk by an adverse ruling on its Motion is tangible, 

existential, and more than sufficient to satisfy the requirement that the impairment to a putative 

intervenor must be “practical,” not merely “theoretical.” Brumfield v. Dodd, 749 F.3d 339, 344 

(5th Cir. 2014). BlackHawk has provided this Court with substantive evidence of the likely 

terminal impact of the Final Rule on BlackHawk’s business, ECF No. 77-3, evidence which 

Defendants are unable to refute.

3

C. BlackHawk Has a Protectible Interest That Will Be Impaired If Not Allowed 

to Intervene

Defendants make the formalistic argument that BlackHawk will suffer no impairment by 

denial of its Motion because it can simply file its own lawsuit, Opp’n at 8, but Defendants ignore 

3 Defendants’ Opposition cites language on BlackHawk’s website providing online customers with 

notice regarding a backlog of certain products—an unfortunate necessity in these times of 

disrupted supply chains—but Defendants fail to address the notifications elsewhere on 

BlackHawk’s website informing would be purchasers it has suspended the sale of key, best-selling 

products due to the Final Rule. See ECF No. 77-3, Lifschitz Declaration ¶¶ 11–12.

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the substantial likely advantage of BlackHawk’s intervening in a case where injunctive relief has 

already been issued and may be more readily available to stabilize its business before it collapses 

under the strain and uncertainty of the Final Rule. See ECF No. 77-3. Defendants’ simplistic 

arguments do not and cannot refute the reality of the likely terminal economic injury suffered by 

BlackHawk by Defendants’ unconstitutional implementation and enforcement of the Final Rule. 

Defendants argue that BlackHawk can simply bring a separate claim rather than 

intervening, Opp’n at 8, but this approach defies the logic of Rule 24 and Circuit precedent: “Rule 

24 represents an accommodation between two potentially conflicting goals: to achieve judicial 

economies of scale by resolving related issues in a single lawsuit, and to prevent the single lawsuit 

from becoming fruitlessly complex or unending.” United States v. Texas E. Transmission Corp., 

923 F.2d 410, 412 (5th Cir. 1991) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).4 Denial of 

BlackHawk’s ability to protect its interests in this instant matter will undoubtedly cause further 

(unnecessary) delay for the Court where the same issues will be litigated in piecemeal fashion 

instead of under one docket. Moreover, it logically flows that Defendants have undertaken these 

efforts to deny BlackHawk of its right to intervene knowing that—while Defendants have an 

unlimited budget and no threat of demise—BlackHawk is on death’s doorstep as a company. But 

beyond all this, importantly, BlackHawk has already contacted counsel for Plaintiffs and expressed 

4 This Court should note the misguided reliance Defendants place on Texas E. Transmission Corp., 

a case that is inapposite on multiple levels. The putative intervenor in Texas E. Transmission was 

the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania whose motion failed to explain how a proposed consent 

decree between the federal government and a Texas entity could have a stare decisis impact on 

Pennsylvania. Id. at 414–15 (“Absent some cogent explanation of how the decree in this case could 

preempt state laws, Pennsylvania’s argument fails to establish a reasonable possibility that the 

disposition of this action creates any realistic impairment of Pennsylvania’s ability to enforce its 

environmental laws.”). Here, in contrast, the intervenor is a Texas business who has present 

briefing and evidence showing that its survival is likely to directly depend on the developments 

and outcome of this proceeding. The weight of the court’s denial of intervention in Texas E. 

Transmission simply does not fall on the intervention decision currently before this Court.

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its intention to abide by all current scheduling orders and to work with the parties to seamlessly 

integrate in the case so as to not disrupt the adjudication of the matter. Given the above, the Court 

should weigh this factor in favor of BlackHawk. 

BlackHawk has shown that it has a “real, concrete stake in the outcome of th[e] 

litigation”—not a “mere[] prefer[ence]” for one outcome over another. Texas, 805 F.3d at 657, 

661. Courts have held that “[t]he threat of economic injury from the outcome of litigation 

undoubtedly gives a petitioner the requisite interest.” Symetra Life Ins. Co. v. Rapid Settlements 

Ltd., No. CIV.A. H-05-3167, 2006 WL 2382250, at *4 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 16, 2006) (quoting Utahns 

for Better Transp. v. U.S. Dept. of Transp., 295 F.3d 1111, 1115 (10th Cir. 2002)). 

D. BlackHawk’s Interests Are Not Adequately Represented in This Litigation

Further, BlackHawk’s interests are inadequately represented by the existing parties. Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 24(a)(2). A proposed intervenor need not show that representation by existing parties 

will be inadequate. Entergy Gulf States La., L.L.C. v. U.S. EPA, 817 F.3d 198, 203 (5th Cir. 2016). 

Rather, a proposed intervenor must show only that representation “may be” inadequate. Wal-Mart 

Stores, Inc. v. Tex. Alcoholic Beverage Comm’n, 834 F.3d 562, 569 (5th Cir. 2016); see also 

Br. at 8 (quoting Edwards v. City of Houston, 78 F.3d 983, 1005 (5th Cir. 1996), a moving party 

need only show that its interests “may be inadequate” and “the burden of making that showing 

should be treated as minimal.”). 

Defendants rely upon St. Bernard Par. v. Lafarge N. Am., Inc., 914 F.3d 969, 974 

(5th Cir. 2019), to suggest that prejudice to BlackHawk was self-incurred because BlackHawk 

chose not to file or join other litigation in the months after the Final Rule was published. Opp’n at 

4, 7–8. However, in Lafarge, the movant sought to intervene from a case he had withdrew from 

six years prior. The court noted that the putative intervenor “knew that he had an interest in the 

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case when he withdrew in 2011, six years before he moved to intervene. [] So the first timeliness 

factor weighs against permitting intervention.” Id. at 974–75. The Lafarge case involved far 

different circumstances than are presently before this Court and is readily distinguishable. 

The other out-of-circuit cases cited by Defendants provide little support for their 

Opposition. See B.H. v. McDonald, 49 F.3d 294, 297 (7th Cir. 1995) (no prejudice to denying 

intervention where putative intervenor’s distinct interest was merely that all future proceedings be 

conducted in open court); Warren v. Comm’r, 302 F.3d 1012, 1015 (9th Cir. 2002) (“[W]e have 

never considered whether an intervenor may bypass a lower court altogether and raise new claims 

for the first time in an existing appeal. We see no prudential reason for allowing intervention at 

this time.”) (emphasis added); Fairholme Funds, Inc. v. United States, 681 F. App’x 945, 949 

(Fed. Cir. 2017) (intervention denied where movant already had filed a complaint in separate 

action and his motion to intervene was more than three years after he knew or should have known 

of rights claimed in intervention).

Even where a proposed intervenor “has the same ultimate objective” for the lawsuit, any

presumption of adequate representation is defeated if the movant establishes an “adversity of 

interest, collusion, or nonfeasance on the part of the existing party.” Field, 35 F.4th at 1020 

(internal quotes omitted), such as by showing that the respective parties’ interests diverge “in a 

manner germane to the case.” Texas, 805 F.3d at 662. 

Here, the presumption is not supported, and even if the presumption was applicable, 

BlackHawk has shown enough to overcome it. BlackHawk has shown a substantive “adversity of 

interest” with Tactical Machining, a marketplace competitor who already enjoys the protections 

of the Court’s injunctive relief, that is sufficient to merit intervention under Rule 24(a)(2). See

Second Baptist Church v. City of San Antonio, No. 5:20-CV-29-DAE, 2020 WL 6821324, at *6 

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(W.D. Tex. Apr. 17, 2020) (concluding plaintiff’s briefing and answer failed to properly address 

the interests of proposed intervenors and finding that “there is at least a chance that representation 

of the [movants’] interest ‘may be’ inadequate” and “that [movants’] have rebutted the 

presumption of adequate representation.”).

Defendants’ argument that BlackHawk’s interests are adequately represented is further 

undercut by Defendants themselves opposing any expansion of the current injunctive relief 

specifically to BlackHawk. See ECF No. 72 at 10 n.13 (“Because Plaintiffs do not establish 

associational standing on behalf of FPC’s members, there is no basis to issue an injunction to 

BlackHawk Manufacturing Group, Inc., for example, or any other entity that is a member of FPC 

but is not a party to this action in its own right.”); see also Br. at 8 (same). 

Accordingly, BlackHawk has satisfied the “relatively minimal” burden by showing that 

Tactical Machining has competing interests in the case and cannot be presumed to adequately 

represent BlackHawk’s interests. See League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. Clements, 884 F.2d 

185, 189 (5th Cir. 1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

II. BLACKHAWK HAS MET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR PERMISSIVE 

INTERVENTION

Defendants likewise fail to show why this Court should not exercise its discretion in 

granting permissive intervention to BlackHawk. Defendants’ double down on their suggestion that 

BlackHawk has engaged in “procedural gamesmanship” by merely reciting their conclusory 

opinion that BlackHawk’s Motion is untimely and then citing a series of inapposite, out-of-circuit 

cases that are readily distinguishable. 

For example, Defendants provide a strategically edited quote from Larson v. JPMorgan 

Chase & Co., 530 F.3d 578, 583–84 (7th Cir. 2008), but any supportive value evaporates upon a 

reading of the cited language in context:

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A district judge has discretion in deciding whether a motion to intervene is timely, and he 

did not abuse that discretion in this case when he refused to allow belated intervention by 

a sophisticated litigant with a large stake who had no good excuse for failing to seek 

intervention (or bringing its own suit) years ago, who violated the spirit albeit not the letter 

of the statute of limitations, who appears to have acted for strategic reasons, and whose 

attempt to intervene delayed a settlement, thus further delaying the conclusion of an already 

protracted litigation growing out of a decade-old merger.

Id. The Larson case involved intervention in a years-old class action on the cusp of settlement, 

circumstances far different than the early-stage matter before this Court. Likewise, Richardson v. 

Flores, 979 F.3d 1102, 1105 (5th Cir. 2020), involved a motion to intervene at the appeal stage, 

and in Missouri Coal. for the Env’t Found. v. Wheeler, No. 2:19-CV-4215-NKL, 2020 WL 

9215898, at *9–10 (W.D. Mo. Aug. 15, 2020), the court expressed concerns over strategic 

gamesmanship only after having first found that the movants’ interests were adequately 

represented by the State of Missouri. While creatively wordsmithed, Defendants’ citations do not 

cite relevant caselaw on which this Court could base a denial of permissive intervention. See U.S. 

Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n v. Wellpath LLC, No. 5:20-CV-1092-DAE, 2021 WL 4096556, 

at *2 (W.D. Tex. Mar. 15, 2021) (granting permissive intervention where intervenor filed her 

motion to intervene at the beginning of discovery and before a trial date had been set); see also 

Second Baptist Church, 2020 WL 6821324 at *6 (“Even if [Movants] had failed to demonstrate 

intervention as of right ... the [c]ourt would still allow [Movants] to permissively intervene.”).

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, BlackHawk respectfully requests that this Court grant its Motion 

to Intervene.

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Respectfully Submitted, 

/s/ Brian D. Poe

Brian D. Poe 

TX Bar No. 24056908

BRIAN D. POE, ATTORNEY AT LAW PLLC

The Bryce Building 

909 Throckmorton Street 

Fort Worth, Texas 76102 

Phone: (817) 870-2022

Fax: (817) 977-6501

bpoe@bpoelaw.com

Michael J. Sullivan

MA Bar No. 487210, Pro Hac Vice 

J. Christopher Amrhein, Jr.

MA Bar No. 703170, Pro Hac Vice 

Nathan P. Brennan 

MN Bar No. 389954, Pro Hac Vice 

ASHCROFT LAW FIRM LLC

200 State Street, 7th Floor

Boston, MA 02109

Phone: (617) 573-9400

Fax: (617) 933-7607

msullivan@ashcroftlawfirm.com

camrhein@ashcroftlawfirm.com

nbrennan@ashcroftlawfirm.com

Counsel for proposed Intervenor-Plaintiff 

BlackHawk Manufacturing Group Inc. d/b/a 80 

Percent Arms

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I certify that on October 14, 2022, the foregoing document was served, via the Court’s 

CM/ECF Document Filing System, upon the registered CM/ECF users in this action.

/s/ Brian D. Poe

Brian D. Poe

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