Opinion ID: 852959
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Compliance with Regulatory Statutes as a Defense

Text: The Court of Appeals held that legislative authorization of the defendants activities served as an affirmative defense to any public nuisance claim and insulated the defendants from liability for a harmful activity. City of Gary, 776 N.E.2d at 379, n. 4. We disagree. Presumably the legislative authorization to which the Court of Appeals referred is found either in Indiana Code sections 35-47-2.5-1 through 15, dealing with the sale of handguns, or Article I, Section 32 of the Indiana Constitution, which gives Indiana citizens the right to bear arms in defense of themselves and others. See Kellogg v. City of Gary, 562 N.E.2d 685, 694 (Ind.1990). But as established in Part A, an activity can be lawful and still be conducted in an unreasonable manner so as to constitute a nuisance. The Indiana statutes detail the procedure to be used by a dealer in every handgun transaction involving background checks and furnishing information on gun purchasers to the state police. Intentional failure to observe a statutory standard is presumptively unreasonable. [10] Indeed, the doctrine has been specifically applied to unlawful gun sales. Over a decade ago the Court of Appeals held that sales in violation of gun registration laws are negligence per se for which the seller may be civilly liable. Rubin v. Johnson, 550 N.E.2d 324, 329 (Ind.Ct.App.1990). Some of the activity alleged in the complaint presumably violates those regulatory statutes, either directly in the case of the dealers or as knowing accomplices in the case of the other defendants. More generally, gun regulatory laws leave room for the defendants to be in compliance with those regulations while still acting unreasonably and creating a public nuisance. As the court in AcuSport recently pointed out, [t]he fact that conduct is otherwise lawful is no defense where ... the actions or failures to act of multiple defendants creating in the aggregate a public nuisance can justify liability.... NAACP v. AcuSport, Inc., 271 F.Supp.2d 435, 482 (E.D.N.Y.2003). The essence of a nuisance claim is the foreseeable harm unreasonably created by the defendants' conduct. In any event, the City alleges that the defendants, though subject to regulatory schemes, either directly or as accomplices, are not in compliance with applicable laws. The City has alleged that (1) dealers engage in illegal sales, and (2) the distributors and manufacturers know of their practice and have it within their power to curtail them but do not do so for profit reasons. More specifically, the City claims that manufacturers are on notice of the concentration of illegal handgun sales in a small percentage of dealers, and the ability to control distribution through these dealers, but continue to facilitate unlawful sales by failing to curtail supply. The City also alleges substantial and ongoing human and financial harm from these unlawful sales. These allegations state a claim.