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WASHINGTON — Today, the House of Representatives filed an amicus brief supporting the petitioners in the United States Supreme Court case, Smith & Wesson Inc., et al. v. Mexico.

The case concerns whether American gun manufacturers and wholesalers may be held liable for the actions of criminal drug cartels in Mexico that use their products. The lawsuit was filed by the Mexican government in 2021.  It was dismissed by the district court, which found that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a bipartisan statute enacted in 2005, barred the suit.  However, the case was revived on appeal by the First Circuit, which determined that an exception to the PLCAA applied and thus permitted Mexico’s suit to proceed.

In the brief, the House argues that the Mexican government is attempting an end run around Congress by asking the judiciary to impose far-reaching regulations on the firearms industry that Congress has declined to adopt.  Such injunctive relief would usurp Congress’s authority to regulate firearms, and the Mexican government’s lawsuit is precisely the type of suit that Congress sought to prohibit when it passed the PLCAA.

According to the House’s brief: “[I]f affirmed, the decision below would short-circuit the legislative process and usurp Congressional authority. The Constitution assigns firearms-related policy decisions to the American people’s elected representatives, subject to the constraints of the Second Amendment. The Mexican government’s radical request for injunctive relief would instead allow federal courts to make those important decisions.  Such a result would turn our constitutional structure on its head, and the Court should not permit it.”

Read below for a summary of the House’s argument. Click here to read the full brief.

After careful study, Congress decided that firearms manufacturers ordinarily should not be liable for harms that third-party criminals cause when they use firearms illegally. It thus enacted the PLCAA, which generally bars suits that aim to hold firearms manufacturers liable for such harms.  Congress did not enact this law in a vacuum. Rather, it was reacting to a flurry of lawsuits attempting to hold the firearms industry liable for criminals misusing their products. These suits sought both huge damage awards and injunctive relief that would have imposed new regulations on the firearms industry. However, Congress saw this legal gambit for what it was: an effort to use the judiciary to accomplish policy goals that advocates could not achieve through the legislative process.

The Mexican government is now trying to peddle the same scheme. It aims to hold American firearms companies (Petitioners) liable for harms that criminal drug cartels have caused in Mexico. And it is asking a federal court to impose regulations—like a requirement for firearms to include certain features that would prevent unauthorized users from firing them—that Congress has declined to adopt. This is the posterchild for what the PLCAA was meant to prevent. But the court below concluded that the PLCAA does not apply to the Mexican government’s complaint. In its view, this suit falls within a narrow statutory exception, one that permits suits against companies that knowingly violate a firearms law if—and only if—that violation is the proximate cause of the relevant harm.

That exception does not apply here. Petitioners themselves have violated no law. They sell lawful products to firearms wholesalers or retail dealers that have the federal government’s stamp of approval (through government-issued licenses). Yet this may amount to aiding and abetting, according to the court below, because Petitioners allegedly know that some of their firearms will end up in cartel hands yet fail to take action to prevent that. This limitless theory would essentially criminalize the sale of any product that has a history of third-party misuse, and it lacks support in this Court’s precedent. Nor is any purported legal violation by firearms companies the proximate cause of the damage that the cartels caused. Cartels are, after all, criminal enterprises. And Petitioners’ (lawful) conduct in the United States is far removed from harms inflicted by the cartels in Mexico. Their firearms pass through other hands and even cross the U.S. border before finding their way into criminal enterprises, which independently choose to use them in a manner that inflicts harm. These are textbook intervening causes. And Petitioners have no special relationship with the cartels that might justify departing from the standard rule, which does not hold parties liable for harms that flow from intervening causes.

The Mexican government, at bottom, is trying to dragoon the judiciary into exercising legislative power. It is asking the lower court to impose regulations that Congress has consistently refrained from enacting. Such an outcome would run afoul of the separation of powers and is exactly what Congress sought to prevent when it passed the PLCAA. Affirming the judgment below would therefore gut the PLCAA and threaten our constitutional order. The Court should reverse the First Circuit’s decision.

Background:

The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group or BLAG is comprised of the Speaker, the Majority Leader, the Majority Whip, the Minority Leader and the Minority Whip. Pursuant to House Rule II, Clause 8, BLAG is responsible for articulating the House’s institutional position in legal filings with federal, state, and local courts. BLAG was established during the 103rd Congress. In this case, the Speaker, Majority Leader, and Majority Whip supported filing this brief. The Minority Leader and Minority Whip did not.

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