Opinion ID: 2525263
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Social Burden of Potential Liability

Text: Turning to social utility, neither the record nor the briefs demonstrate that the manufacture and sale of the TEC-9/DC9 or similar weapons are activities of such value to society that Navegar and its fellow makers of assault weapons must be protected against the threat of liability for their negligent acts in designing, marketing and distributing such firearms. Here the potential for negligence liability does not, for example, threaten a wide range of socially vital industrial activities (see Parsons, supra, 15 Cal.4th at pp. 473-475, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 291, 936 P.2d 70), tend to prevent exercise of a constitutional right (see Kentucky Fried Chicken of Cal, Inc. v. Superior Court (1997) 14 Cal.4th 814, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 756, 927 P.2d 1260), or pose a risk of disrupting the government's response to a public emergency (see Macias v. State of California (1995) 10 Cal.4th 844, 856-859, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 592, 897 P.2d 530). To the contrary, at stake is nothing more than a gunmaker's ability to make and sell on the civilian market, unfettered by potential negligence liability, a type of firearm that Congress and our own Legislature have found highly dangerous to public safety and of relatively little value for recreation, hunting, and other legitimate uses. Society, it seems clear, assigns a low utility to unrestricted distribution of the TEC-9/DC9. The Supenski declaration and the deposition testimony of Navegar officers Garcia and Solodovnick lend independent support to the same conclusion. The only recreational use Garcia identified for the TEC-9/DC9 was plinking, i.e., informal target shooting, certainly a lawful activity but hardly a vital social function or one for which the TEC-9/DC9, with its high ammunition cost, is especially well suited. Neither armed resistance to law enforcement nor play[ing] military, other intended uses Garcia and Solodovnick identified for the TEC-9/DC9, are of recognized high social utility. The defense of self and home is an important social value and right (see, e.g., Cal. Const., art. I, § 1), but, as Supenski opined and Solodovnick agreed in part, the TEC-9/DC9 is not particularly well suited for that use, considering the caliber and type of ammunition it fires, its extraordinarily high capacity. and its inaccuracy (in Garcia's words, the gun has a tendency to sort of dance on you, when fired with one hand). Recognizing potential negligence liability for the manufacture and distribution of assault pistols like the TEC-9/DC9 could not be expected to substantially interfere with Californians' ability to protect themselves and their families against criminal violence. Navegar contends such value judgments are not for the courts to make at all, but are purely a legislative matter. The Legislature, of course, has in some respects limited gunmakers' liability in Civil Code section 1714.4, as I discuss hereafter. But at this stage of the analysis the question is only whether Navegar is immune from all potential negligence liability based on the manufacture and distribution of the TEC-9/DC9. In answering this question the court mayindeed, mustmake a set of judgments about, inter alia, the consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach. ( Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 113, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561; see Moning v. Alfono (1977) 400 Mich. 425, 254 N.W.2d 759, 763 [reversing directed verdict for the manufacturer in negligent marketing action by a child injured through a playmate's use of a slingshot: The interest of children in ready-market access to slingshots is not so clearly entitled to absolute protection in comparison with the interest of persons who face the risk thereby created as to warrant the Court in declaring, as a rule of common law, that the risk will be deemed to be reasonable.].) To hold here on grounds of social utility that Navegar owed plaintiffs no duty would be to make the judgment that manufacture and sale of the TEC-9/DC9 and other assault pistols are of such value to society as to require total immunity from negligence liability. No basis appears for such a judgment. The Legislature, moreover, has considered the social utility of the TEC-9/DC9 and like weapons in detail and has stated its view unequivocally in the AWCA: The Legislature has restricted the assault weapons specified in Section 12276 based upon finding that each firearm has such a high rate of fire and capacity for firepower that its function as a legitimate sports or recreational firearm is substantially outweighed by the danger that it can be used to kill and injure human beings. (Pen. Code, § 12275.5.) Though the Legislature also recognized that many semiautomatic firearms, including some semiautomatic assault weapons, have legitimate uses (see In re Jorge M. (2000) 23 Cal.4th 866, 883-884, 98 Cal.Rptr.2d 466, 4 P.3d 297), it believed the danger they posed greatly outweighed the social utility of their continued unrestricted sale and ownership. In Kasler v. Lockyer (2000) 23 Cal.4th 472, 481-491, 97 Cal.Rptr.2d 334, 2 P.3d 581, we held the legislative scheme, albeit perhaps imperfect, was a rational response to a pressing public safety problem. That federal law in 1993 did not yet prohibit manufacture of the TEC-9/DC9 does not reflect a national policy favoring or protecting assault pistols. A year after the killings here, Congress responded to this and other incidents with restrictions on manufacture and interstate sale of the TEC-9 and other semiautomatic assault weapons. (18 U.S.C. §§ 921(a)(30), 922(v)(l), added by Pub.L. No. 103-322 (Sept. 13, 1994) 108 Stat. 1796.) The reporting congressional committee noted that [a] series of hearings over the last five years on the subject of semiautomatic assault weapons has demonstrated that they are a growing menace to our society. . . . (H.R.Rep. No. 103-489, 2d Sess., p. 13 (1994), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at pp. 1820, 1821.) During that time evidence continue[d] to mount that such firearms were favored by drug dealers, gangs, and other criminals ( ibid ), and [p]ublic concern about semiautomatic assault weapons has grown because of shootings in which large numbers of innocent people have been killed and wounded, and in which law enforcement officers have been murdered (id. at p. 14). That Congress took several years to respond to the growing public safety problem posed by assault weapons does not suggest prior legislative approval of such weapons.