Halliday v. Sturm, Ruger & Co.

Opinion by Wilner.

This case arises from the tragic death of Jordan Garris. In June, 1999, Jordan shot himself while playing with his father's handgun. Jordan's mother, petitioner here, seeks to hold the manufacturer of the handgun, respondent Sturm, Ruger & Co., liable for Jordan's death. The Circuit Court for Baltimore City, by granting respondent's motion for summary judgment, found no liability. A divided Court of Special Appeals affirmed. We shall do likewise.

BACKGROUND

The handgun in question is a Ruger P89 semi-automatic pistol. To fire the gun, one must place a loaded magazine into it, pull the slide at the top of the gun as far to the rear as possible and then release it, ensure that a safety lever is in the "fire" position, and then pull the trigger. Even when loaded, the gun will not fire unless the trigger is pulled with the safety lever in the "fire" position.

Jordan's father, Clifton Garris, purchased the gun in March, 1999, from On Target, Inc., a retail firearms store. With the purchase of the gun came an instruction manual, the offer of a free safety course, which Garris declined, a pamphlet entitled "Youth Handgun Safety Act Notice" published by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a lock box in which to store the gun and the magazine, and a padlock for the box. There was a dispute as to whether On Target recommended that Garris purchase a separate trigger lock for the gun - in an affidavit filed in support of the motion for summary judgment, the salesman from On Target stated that such a device was recommended, but in a responding affidavit, Garris said that it was not.

The instruction manual provided multiple warnings and instructions regarding the storage and use of the gun. On the cover of the manual, and embossed on the barrel of the gun itself, was an admonition to read the manual before using the gun. Among other warnings and instructions in the manual is a highlighted box entitled "WARNING - STORAGE" in which, in red letters, is the statement "Firearms should always be stored securely and unloaded, away from children and careless adults" and the statement, in capital letters, "STORE SECURELY AND UNLOADED." In the part on "THE BASIC RULES OF SAFE FIREARMS HANDLING," which itself is in red capital letters, is a section headed, in red capital letters, "FIREARMS SHOULD BE UNLOADED WHEN NOT IN USE," and in that section is the warning:

"Firearms and ammunition should be securely locked in racks or cabinets when not in use. Ammunition should be safely stored separate from firearms. Store your firearms out of sight of visitors and children. It is the gun owner's responsibility to be certain that children and persons unfamiliar with firearms cannot gain access to firearms, ammunition, or components."

Garris disregarded virtually every one of these warnings and opportunities. He did not store either the gun or the magazine in the lock box but rather placed the gun under his mattress and kept the loaded magazine on a bookshelf in the same room, so that it was visible and accessible to Jordan. Jordan found the handgun under his father's mattress. He also found the loaded magazine. From watching television, the child knew how to load the magazine into the gun, and he did so. While playing with the gun, he apparently pulled the slide and thereby placed a bullet into the chamber. Either the safety lever was in the "fire" position already or Jordan moved it there. He then pulled the trigger, shot himself in the head, and died two days later. He was three years old.

Petitioner alleged that the gun was defective and unreasonably dangerous because its design "failed to incorporate reasonable devices to prevent its use by young children," in particular "one or more of the following: a grip safety, a heavy trigger-pull, a child-resistant manual safety, a built-in lock, a trigger lock, and/or personalized gun technology that would have substantially reduced the likelihood that a child could fire the gun . . . ." Citing data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the effect that 1,641 children under ten were accidentally killed by handguns between 1979 and 1996, petitioner averred in her complaint that "it was foreseeable that the gun would be found and handled by a young child, and that it would be fired by a young child, with resulting foreseeable grievous or fatal injury to the child and/or others." Petitioner contended that the handgun industry was aware of the problem of young children finding and injuring themselves with handguns and, in the 1880's, had developed a childproof grip safety, but that Sturm Ruger manufactured the gun without that, or any other, childproof device.

The essence of petitioner's case was that, when dealing with design defects in a strict liability claim, the court should apply a "risk-utility" analysis in lieu of a "consumer expectation" test and hold that the gun in question failed that preferred test because (1) the risk of excluding child safety features outweighs the utility of that exclusion, and (2) alternative safer designs could have been adopted economically.

DISCUSSION

The principal issue presented here is whether, in examining whether a product in general, or a handgun in particular, is defective for purposes of a strict liability action, this Court should continue to apply the "consumer expectation" test, as urged by Sturm Ruger, or should adopt instead a version of the "risk-utility" analysis, as requested by petitioner.

We revisited the issue of which test to apply in Kelley, in connection with handguns. The plaintiff there was injured when he was shot during a robbery attempt. He sued the gun manufacturer, claiming, among other things, that the gun was "abnormally dangerous." Responding to questions certified to us by the U.S. District Court, we opined on whether (1) the manufacturer of a handgun, in general, was liable under any strict liability theory to a person injured as a result of the criminal use of its product, and (2) the manufacturer of a particular category of small, cheap handgun, sometimes referred to as "Saturday Night Specials," which were regularly used in criminal activity, was strictly liable to a person injured by such a handgun during the course of a crime. In answering the first question, we cited Phipps for the proposition that "in determining whether a product is defective, in its design or manufacture, Maryland cases have generally applied the 'consumer expectation' test," and we concluded that "[a] handgun manufacturer or marketer could not be held liable under this theory."

The courts still seem to be split with respect to gun cases. Those that follow the approach of Kelley apply the consumer expectation test, and hold that a manufacturer may not be held liable for design defect on a risk-utility analysis unless the gun malfunctions. In some States, Texas and California among them, that approach is governed by statute. Others have, as petitioner urges, adopted a risk-utility analysis without regard to malfunction and held gun manufacturers liable, even when the gun operates precisely as intended, for failure to attach an available safety feature that might have precluded the gun from firing. We have discerned no significant shift or coalescence of views in this regard since our decision in Kelley.

The one arena in which Kelley, itself, and the question of gun safety in general, has produced the most significant and relevant debate has been the Maryland General Assembly. Immediately on the heels of Kelley, bills representing nearly opposite viewpoints were introduced into the Legislature - one, SB 151 (1986), would have directly overturned the second part of Kelley and expressly precluded liability on the part of manufacturers and merchants of "Saturday Night Specials" for injuries caused by another's use of such a weapon, and another, SB 98 (1986), would have made it a misdemeanor to sell a "Saturday Night Special." Both failed.

About a dozen bills are pending in the current 2002 session of the General Assembly dealing with handgun safety and with the right to sue for damages caused by handguns. Some would strengthen the penalties attached to the 1992 law dealing with the storage of loaded guns where children might find them. One (SB 381) would reserve to the State alone the right to sue gun manufacturers and dealers for damages or other relief.

CONCLUSION

It is clear that, under the consumer expectation test that we applied in Kelley, no cause of action had been stated in this case. There was no malfunction of the gun; regrettably, it worked exactly as it was designed and intended to work and as any ordinary consumer would have expected it to work. The gun is a lawful weapon and was lawfully sold. What caused this tragedy was the carelessness of Jordan's father in leaving the weapon and the magazine in places where the child was able to find them, in contravention not only of common sense but of multiple warnings given to him at the time of purchase.

We are asked to modify Kelley in various ways that would permit an action to proceed against the manufacturer of the weapon. We are asked to modify the common law to impose liability on gun manufacturers who have failed to incorporate into their products one or another kind of device that would make the weapon childproof, quite apart from the inclusion of other safety devices, clear warnings regarding the storage of the weapon, and the offer of a lock box in which to store it. Although, as we noted, some courts have done that, there is no consensus in that regard. We were asked in Kelley to extend and create new theories of liability, which we declined to do, noting that "we have consistently recognized that common law principles should not be changed contrary to the public policy of the State set forth by the General Assembly of Maryland."

That caution is especially appropriate here. Given the controversy that continues to surround the risk-utility standard articulated for design defect cases in Sec. 2 of the RESTATEMENT (THIRD), we are reluctant at this point to cast aside our existing jurisprudence in favor of such an approach on any broad, general basis. Nor is there a need to do so in this case, which deals with more specific issues that have been presented on several occasions to the General Assembly and have been considered and debated in that arena. So far, the Legislature has chosen not to place these burdens on gun manufacturers but has attempted to deal with the problem in other ways. We shall respect that policy choice.