Opinion ID: 852959
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Damages for Harm Occurring at the Time of Sale

Text: The City also seeks to recover for the harm caused by the negligent sale of handguns independently from the harm caused by the use of handguns. This alleged injury removes several links from the causal chain needed to establish harm from the use of the gun. In addition to the costs in investigating and attempting to prevent crimes committed with handguns, the City also seeks recovery for the harm caused directly to it by the acts of illegal handgun sales. Examples of these damages are costs of investigations of illegal sales and services to juveniles who posses firearms. The City claims that the costs it seeks to recover are analogous to cleanup costs of a toxic waste spill which are recoverable even in jurisdictions that follow the no-recovery-of-municipal-costs rule. See City of Flagstaff, 719 F.2d at 324. Certainly a unit of government has a civil remedy for injury to its property. City of Marion v. Taylor, 785 N.E.2d 663, 664-65 (Ind.Ct.App.2003) (suing for damages to stoplight). Cleanup costs are often in the nature of abatement costs. They restore the situation to the pre-nuisance status. The damage items the City identifies as arising from the sales are generally additional police efforts and services to juvenile buyers. These may present insurpassable issues of causation. Claims with fewer intervening factors have been regarded as simply too complex to permit proof of damages. See Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720, 97 S.Ct. 2061, 52 L.Ed.2d 707, (1977) (rejecting antitrust price fixing damages sought by buyers from customers of the price fixers as too speculative because it would require proof of the extent to which the inflated price would be passed on to buyers in the resale market); Camden County Bd. of Chosen Freeholders v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp., et al., 123 F.Supp.2d 245, 263 (D.N.J.2000) (applying reasoning of Illinois Brick to proximate cause in municipal handgun case). However, once again we are presented with a motion to dismiss a conclusory allegation of a complaint. Whether the proof at trial will be sufficient to overcome these issues remains to be seen.