Tort – Shooting victims’ suits against weapons manufacturers are reinstated

Where individuals injured during a school shooting sought to hold manufacturers of assault rifles, assault rifle accessories and ammunition accountable for violations of federal and Virginia law, the district court erred when it dismissed their suits for lack of standing.

Background

Karen Lowy and Antonio Harris were brutally maimed and injured in a 2022 shooting at the Edmund Burke School in Washington, D.C. Their respective 24-count complaints seek to hold several U.S. and foreign-based manufacturers of assault rifles, assault rifle accessories and ammunition accountable for violations of federal and Virginia law.

The district court ruled that plaintiffs could not show a “fairly traceable” connection between their alleged injuries and the alleged misconduct of the defendants, such that they did not possess Article III standing to sue. It also concluded the plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005, or PLCAA.

Standing

The Supreme Court has outlined the three requirements that a plaintiff must establish to possess Article III standing: (1) “an injury in fact” that is “concrete and particularized”; (2) “a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of,” such that the injury is “fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant” and (3) a likelihood that the injury will be “redressed by a favorable decision.” The parties do not dispute that the plaintiffs satisfy the first and the third elements.

The district court anchored its faulty analysis on the question of whether the “plaintiffs . . . allege[d] that defendants’ conduct had a determinative or coercive effect upon Shooter’s actions.” In other words, the court incorrectly believed that the plaintiffs could satisfy the second element (i.e., Article III causation) only if they had demonstrated that the defendants’ conduct had a “determinative or coercive effect” on the actions of the shooter.

The Supreme Court has disavowed the more stringent and exclusive approach espoused by the district court. Rather, the second element will be satisfied if the plaintiffs allege that the defendants’ actions had a “predictable effect . . . on the decisions of third parties,” or when the “injury [was] produced by determinative or coercive effect upon the action of someone else.”

Here, the court agrees with the plaintiffs that the complaints have demonstrated that the defendants’ actions were “at least in part responsible for” causing the plaintiffs’ injuries, and that the defendants’ conduct had a “predictable effect” on the actions of the shooter. The court also agrees that — on the basis of the allegations in the complaints — the defendants’ alleged misconduct had a “determinative or coercive” effect on the shooter. In either situation, the second element is satisfied.

This court is entirely unpersuaded by the district court’s rationale that the plaintiffs’ allegations in the complaints that are predicated on “information and belief” are only an appropriate pleading practice when the necessary information is exclusively in the defendants’ control. Such reasoning overlooks the important fact that “information supporting [their] claims may well be in [the defendants’] possession, given that [the defendants] control and/or have access to their own social media, online platforms, and mailing lists.”

Not only that, but the district court’s mystifying rejection of “information and belief” pleading in a complaint gets the law wrong. Those disregarded allegations support the plaintiffs’ belief that the defendants’ allegedly unlawful marketing practices had a determinative or coercive effect on the shooter’s heinous acts. Because the plaintiffs possess Article III standing to sue, the dismissal ruling is reversed in that regard.

PLCAA

After determining that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to sue, the district court proceeded to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims on their merits, reasoning that the complaints had failed to state a plausible claim upon which relief could be granted. But the district court was not authorized to render such impermissible and advisory merits rulings. This court thus vacates, sets aside and holds for naught the unreviewed advisory aspects of the ruling.

Reversed in part, vacated in part and remanded.

Dissenting opinion

Quattlebaum, J., dissenting:

Plaintiffs fail to plead facts that show their injuries are traceable to defendants’ conduct under Article III. But even if they passed that bar, the plaintiffs certainly failed to allege facts that plausibly plead defendants’ conduct proximately caused their injuries. Either way, the result is the same—plaintiffs’ complaints must be dismissed.

Lowy v. Daniel Defense LLC, Case No. 24-1822, Feb. 11, 2026. 4th Cir. (King), from EDVA at Alexandria (Hilton). Elizabeth Catherine Lockwood for appellants. Brian Wesley Barnes for appellees. VLW 026-2-046. 69 pp.

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