Gun Suit Dropped

"It's been clear for a while now that this was headed in the wrong direction, and we were just waiting for the signal to stop….I'm glad we won't be taking up any more time with this."

So says Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken in this article about why the Queen City is dropping its lawsuit against gun manufacturer Beretta U.S.A.

The most interesting info may be the amount of man hours this thing took to file. As lead attorney Stanley Chesley put it:

Most important, Chesley said, the litigation was beginning to tie up police officers in thousands of hours of depositions and evidence gathering. Sixty-five police officers and other city employees had depositions scheduled, beginning Tuesday.

"It would take a tremendous amount of additional time for your officers to even come close to complying with the depositions," Chesley said.

Reason's Jacob Sullum wrote about recent federal attempts to ban similar lawsuits here.

Comments

[Rus]

About time. If the manufacturers of a legal product are held liable for it’s misuse then I’d assume MADD will sue Ford.

[Tom Hynes]

This was just a business decision by a contingency lawyer:

Chesley, who worked on a contingency basis, said he actually spent $425,551 in billable hours and $136,296 in expenses – none of which will be paid by taxpayers.

I doubt he really cared about police officer time: he cared about his time, and the federal law was going to make the suit worthless. Give him an A for spin.