The Wisconsin Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit against operators of a website that facilitated the purchase of a gun used in a mass shooting. Kramer Levin filed an amicus brief in support of this important victory.
In Daniel, et al. v. Armslist LLC, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision dismissing claims by Yasmeen Daniel against Armslist LLC arising out of the 2012 shooting murder of her mother, Zina Haughton, at the Azana Spa in a Milwaukee suburb.
Zina had obtained a restraining order against her husband, Radcliffe Haughton, that prohibited him from approaching her or possessing a firearm for four years. Two days later, Haughton accessed Armslist’s online marketplace, which connects gun buyers and sellers. Haughton arranged on Armslist to buy a handgun and three high-capacity magazines from a stranger. The day after the purchase, Haughton walked into the spa where Zina worked. He used the handgun to murder her and two co-workers and injure four others before killing himself.
Zina’s daughter filed a wrongful death suit against Armslist and several others. The lower court dismissed the claims as barred by the federal Communications Decency Act (CDA), but the Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed that decision.
Kramer Levin filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation’s largest gun violence prevention organization, with supporters in all 50 states fighting for public safety measures that respect the Second Amendment and help save lives. The brief presented the results of four Everytown investigations: in Nevada, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico. These investigations found that online gun marketplaces attract and facilitate unlicensed gun sales, with no questions asked and no background checks, to buyers who are legally barred from possessing a gun. This poses an enormous threat to public safety by making it easy for such banned individuals to illegally purchase guns.
Kramer Levin filed two other amicus curiae briefs on behalf of Everytown for Gun Safety in 2019. We joined Everytown as amici in the New York State Court of Appeals case Williams v. Beemiller Inc. involving gun trafficking. And we joined Everytown and The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence as amici in the Florida Supreme Court case Love v. State, arguing that a recent amendment to Florida’s Stand Your Ground law is unlawful because it violates the separation of powers provisions of the Florida Constitution.