Indiana: "Court: Gun owners may be sued"

[cuchulainn]

from the Indianapolis Star

http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/2/034481-4722-009.html

Court: Gun owners may be sued

State ruling revives suit against pair whose son used their weapon to kill sheriff's deputy.
By Shannon Tan
[email protected]
April 8, 2003

Gun owners must safely store firearms and can be held liable for failing to do so, the Indiana Supreme Court said Monday in a landmark ruling.

In a 5-0 decision, the court reversed the Allen Circuit Court's dismissal of a 1999 lawsuit against the owners of a handgun used to kill an Allen County sheriff's deputy.

Deputy Eryk Heck, 26, was killed in a shootout with convicted felon Timothy Stoffer on Aug. 15, 1997. Stoffer, 27, who also died, took the handgun from his parents. The Heck family sued Raymond and Patricia Stoffer, asserting the couple knew their drug-addicted son was fleeing from police and failed to safeguard the gun.

The trial court and appeals court ruled that gun ownership was a constitutionally protected right. But the state's highest court found that the issue of negligence should be left to a jury.

"Indiana gun owners are guaranteed the right to bear arms," wrote Chief Justice Randall Shepard, "but this right does not entitle owners to impose on their fellow citizens all the external human and economic costs associated with their ownership."

Only two other states -- Kansas and Montana -- have issued similar rulings, but those cases involved shootings by juveniles, said Daniel Vice, attorney for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, based in Washington.

"This ruling today is the most important of them all," he said. "You have a duty to store your gun properly and keep it away from people like criminals who might use it."

More than 250,000 firearms are stolen each year. Stolen firearms are used in 35 percent of crimes involving guns. In Indiana, gun violence resulted in more than 4,000 deaths and 8,800 injuries from 1993 to 1997, according to the latest figures from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Don Heck, Eryk's father, said he would continue to pursue the lawsuit against the Stoffers.

"People who own weapons and guns (need) to keep them secure, away from other people, and know where they are at all times," said the Fort Wayne retiree. "I own a gun. It's put away and locked up."

But Jerry Wehner, president of the Indiana State Rifle and Pistol Association, warned that the decision could set a dangerous precedent.

"If I come and steal your car and I commit a crime with it and in the course of the crime, the police officer is killed, do you feel it's right that the (officer's family) come back and sue you?" he asked. "Where does it stop?"

Daniel Hawk, an attorney for the Stoffers, said he had not read the entire decision and could not comment. A message left for the Stoffers was not returned.

Court documents show that in a nine-year period, Timothy Stoffer was charged with resisting law enforcement, battery, burglary, drug possession, forgery and escape. He also had stolen and forged checks from his parents' business, but they allowed him to keep the keys to their home.

The gun was kept in an armchair in Raymond Stoffer's bedroom but was hidden in the attic when the grandchildren visited, according to court documents.

"The Stoffers exercised due care to protect their grandchildren and valuables but failed to safeguard the gun from a 'mentally disturbed, habitual and violent offender (with) free access to the premises,' " Shepard wrote in the decision.

The Indiana Supreme Court has yet to rule on a lawsuit brought by the city of Gary against gun manufacturers and dealers. Gary, one of about 33 cities and counties across the country that have sued the gun industry, alleges that gun dealers have funneled firearms to criminals and contends that juveniles should be held liable.

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote Wednesday on a National Rifle Association-backed bill Wednesday that would give the gun industry immunity from lawsuits brought by gun-violence victims, including the Gary suit.

Copyright 2003 IndyStar.com.

 

[Gray Peterson]

Can you say "retarded?

I think so!

 

[tyme]

Deputy Eryk Heck, 26, was killed in a shootout with convicted felon Timothy Stoffer on Aug. 15, 1997. Stoffer, 27, who also died, took the handgun from his parents.

He was a drug addict, mentally unstable, and had assaulted a police officer, yet he was out on bail pending sentencing for something? (maybe it was the assault on the police officer) Why would you expect parents to disown a son when the judge thinks the son isn't an immediate danger to anyone? Certainly the judge knows that anyone can buy a black market handgun on the street quite easily. He stole $8k from his parents (probably for drugs); certainly he could steal a couple hundred from them or from someone else for a handgun.

Perhaps it's the judge who set bail who should be sued. The judges who were involved with this lawsuit should all be deported to somewhere nice... like Baghdad.

Info is from the June 2002 issue of the LAP (Legal Action Project, a division of the Brady Campaign) newsletter.

 

[standingbear]

whateverhappenedto..

holding people responsable for their own actions..the judge is the one that left him out on bail.he is the one that committed a homicide.its not the same as if he were a 4 year old child living in his parents home,he was 27,previously incarcerated and released by the legal system setting and paying bail.does this mean if a neighborhood punk stole my car and ran over someone,id be held responsable...come on.it sends the wrong message; commit a crime and someone else will pay.

 

[rock jock]

This is, IMO, a good call. Their son was a criminal and they allowed him easy access to an instrument which they should have known, based on his criminal history, he would misuse if he acquired it. The parents have a responsibility to make sure that their guns are not readily available to a criminal. They made no effort to meet that responsibility.

 

[CZ-75]

A good call, IMO, would be to sue BOTH the parents and the judge.

 

[Blackhawk]

But the state's highest court found that the issue of negligence should be left to a jury.

I agree.

 

[spacemanspiff]

This is, IMO, a good call. Their son was a criminal and they allowed him easy access to an instrument which they should have known, based on his criminal history, he would misuse if he acquired it. The parents have a responsibility to make sure that their guns are not readily available to a criminal. They made no effort to meet that responsibility.

would you feel the same if the Deputy was killed with a knife? should his parents have locked up all dangerous items? a pair of scissors? a hammer? crowbar? shovel? fork? spork? anything that can be used as a weapon?

what if the son was still alive? would they ignore prosecuting him and go for the parents?

 

[Standing Wolf]

"Indiana gun owners are guaranteed the right to bear arms," wrote Chief Justice Randall Shepard, "but this right does not entitle owners to impose on their fellow citizens all the external human and economic costs associated with their ownership."

All those "external human and economic costs associated with their ownership" sound like a mighty large loop hole to me! Special taxes! Special fees! Special insurance requirements! Special...

 

[Soap]

Interesting how the courts believe that the victim of a crime, in this case theft, is responsible for that crime and repercussions of that crime. Hopefully this will set a legal precedent. "But your honor, she had a short skirt on, she was too easy to rape!"

 

[tyme]

A good call, IMO, would be to sue BOTH the parents and the judge.

The judge is supposed to have a mastery of the law and of jurisprudence that the parents cannot be expected to have.

The parents have some measure of compassion for their son which the judge did not, and still the judge let the son go free pending sentencing.

The son stole $8k from his parents. Yet we and the IN SC apprently must assume that there was some place the parents could have kept the gun that was more secure than where they kept the $8k that was stolen?

 

[rock jock]

would you feel the same if the Deputy was killed with a knife? should his parents have locked up all dangerous items? a pair of scissors? a hammer? crowbar? shovel? fork? spork? anything that can be used as a weapon?

Ignoring the unique role of a gun in the hand of a criminal as a weapon of opportunity and its superior potential for lethality over a knife is plain naive. If this idiot has wielded a knife, he most likely would be dead instead of the deputy.