K-Mart Liable For Selling Gun To Intoxicated Customer Who Shot Ex Girlfriend Causing Quadriplegia
27 Jul 2007
July, 1997
The Florida Supreme Court upheld one of the largest jury verdicts ever in a negligence case against a gun retailer, in which a jury awarded Deborah Kitchen $11.5 million.
The state?s highest court reversed a ruling by the Florida Court of Appeals and found that K-Mart can be held negligent for selling a gun to an obviously intoxicated buyer, who later used the gun to shoot his estranged girlfriend, Deborah Kitchen.
On December 14, 1987, a drunken Thomas Knapp stumbled into a Tampa, Florida, K-Mart and purchased a rifle and ammunition. He was so intoxicated that the clerk had to help him complete the form required by federal law. Within an hour, he used the gun to shoot his former girlfriend, Ms. Kitchen, through the neck, rendering her a quadriplegic.
Ms. Kitchen, a former Tampa resident who now lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sued K-Mart for negligence and, in 1993, was awarded the $11.5 million by a Florida jury. K-Mart appealed the verdict to the Florida District Court of Appeal for the Fourth District. In October 1995, the appeals court ruled for K-Mart, reasoning that because no Florida law prevented K-Mart from selling to an intoxicated buyer, K-Mart owed no duty of care to Deborah Kitchen to refrain from selling to the shooter.
Ms. Kitchen then appealed the decision to the Florida Supreme Court.
In January 1996, the Washington, DC-based Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, joined by the Florida Police Chiefs Association, the Tampa Bay Area Chiefs of Police Association, the American Public Health Association and several community groups, filed an amicus ("friend of the court") brief supporting Ms. Kitchen?s claim. The brief argued that the sale of a firearm to an obviously intoxicated person presents a foreseeable risk of harm. Under general negligence law, people posses a duty to avoid behavior that puts others at risk, regardless of whether that behavior violates the law. If selling guns to intoxicated persons were excluded from this category of behavior, it would create a special protection from liability for negligent sales by gun dealers.
"Today?s ruling is a victory not only for Deborah Kitchen, but for all Florida citizens," said Dennis Henigan, CPHV?s Legal Director. "The court has stated unequivocally that gun dealers are subject to the ?highest standard of care? when selling firearms, because they involve such a high degree of risk of serious injury or death.
"Selling guns is not like selling vacuum cleaners," Mr. Henigan continued. "The state?s gun retailers can no longer sell their lethal products to high-risk persons, and then walk away when the gun is used to kill someone."
