More corporate "rights" in the 9th Circus

This story is from a few weeks ago, but we had to put it aside for awhile to hone our response to the 9th Circuit's ongoing corporatism.

This recent case concerned the 1999 shooting rampage by white supremacist Buford Furrow. I believe Buford Furrow is responsible for what Buford Furrow did. It's my belief that this shooting was the fault of Buford Furrow, not his gun. And I am generally opposed to tighter gun control.

Nonetheless, corporations - including gun manufacturers - have no blanket "right" to be shielded from all lawsuits. On the contrary, plaintiffs generally have a right to sue corporations. It doesn't mean they have a right to win, if they can't prove their case, but they surely have a right to file the suit.

Victims of Furrow's rampage sued Glock, Inc. But now the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has gutted that suit, citing a 2005 law to shield gun makers from almost all suits.

For one thing, that law didn't pass until 2005, and the massacre had occurred back in 1999. So the court is actually giving gun makers retroactive immunity.

Even if it wasn't being applied retroactively, there's still no legal basis for automatically shielding gun manufacturers.

What's next? Are other companies going to be shielded from product liability suits?

Now there's no way to know for sure whether the plaintiffs had a case, because the court won't even let their case go to trial at all. And that's not fair to the plaintiffs.

The larger story here may be that the 9th Circuit almost always sides with corporations - and against individuals. Not unlike when it gutted the ruling against Exxon for the Valdez spill.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/12/BA0O17IHVV.DTL)