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Teen Victim Wants to Buy Gun Manufacturer
Mon Aug 9, 4:16 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Sometimes Brandon Maxfield forgets. He will be cruising down the street with his best friend, talking about pro wrestling, music and girls, when it dawns on him with a familiar flash of embarassment that it's not his rainbow-spiked hair strangers are staring at.
"Then I'll be like, oh yeah, I'm in a wheelchair," said the Willits, Calif., teenager, who was paralyzed from the neck down after being shot by a babysitter a decade ago and gets around by manipulating mechanical sensors around his head.
Maxfield, 17, is in the final days of a tense, quixotic gambit to buy and dismantle the company that made the gun that left him a quadriplegic.
Last year the teen won a record $24 million judgment against Bryco Arms, its distribution arm and its owner. Bryco was forced into bankruptcy, and on Thursday, a federal judge in Florida will auction off 75,600 unassembled guns and other remaining assets.
Maxfield hopes to buy the inventory, melt it down and create a sculpture from the metal. It is tempting to see divine retribution in such a scheme, but the teen and his lawyer, Richard Ruggieri, insist revenge is not their motivation — they simply want to make sure no one else is hurt.
"It started with horror, the realization that — notwithstanding the fact that we had this unanimous finding of defect — there was nothing in the law to prevent them from putting these defective guns back on the market," said Ruggieri, who took on Maxfield's case in 2001 when no other lawyers would.
Ned Nashban, the lawyer representing Bryco owner Bruce Jennings in the bankruptcy, described Maxfield's acquisition attempt as a publicity stunt that only has delayed the gun maker's efforts to settle his debts.
"From our standpoint, it's not a moral question of keeping guns off the street or not," Nashban said. "Bankruptcy court is not the place to socially legislate. It's to create the most money to pay creditors."
Maxfield's life-changing injury happened when he was 7 and a 20-year-old family friend who was babysitting thought he heard a suspicious noise and grabbed a gun from a dresser drawer. The babysitter called Brandon's mother, who instructed him to immediately unload the .38-caliber pistol. While trying to do that, the babysitter accidentally pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck Brandon in the chin and went out through his neck, shattering his spine.
Since the accident, Maxfield has spent more than 500 days in the hospital and been treated for pneumonia 28 times. His spine is degenerating, and doctors say a metal rod must eventuallly be inserted in his neck to support it. But that will limit the mobility of his head, the only body part he can fully control.
"I always wanted to protect my kids and this is something you can't reverse and you can't erase," said Sue Stansberry, Maxfield's mother. "I wish now I had locked it up in a locked case. I didn't do that, and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life."
A jury in Oakland assigned more than half the blame for what happened to the boy's parents and the babysitter who fired the gun. But they said the gun maker also was liable because the pistol could only be unloaded when its trigger safety catch was switched off.
The jury awarded damages totaling $50.9 million — an amount calculated to compensate Maxfield for pain and suffering, future medical and educational expenses, lost earnings and diminished life expectancy.
The trust established to guard the funds has collected $8.75 million from an ex-wife of Jennings and from the insurance company of the firm that distributed the gun to the pawnshop where Maxfield's parents bought it.
Since neither the parents nor the babysitter have any money, the $24 million awarded from Jennings and his companies represent most of what Maxfield can expect to get.
But he has yet to collect any money from Jennings, who shuttered his Costa Mesa, Calif.-based factory and moved to Florida. Jennings laid off 25 employees and put his manufacturing business into bankruptcy.
So far, Maxfield and Bryco's former foreman, Paul Jimenez, are the only interested buyers in the bankruptcy auction.
The bidding will start at $175,000, the amount raised through a non-profit organization Ruggieri set up to take donations over the Internet, since the damages won from the accident cannot be used for that purpose under the terms of the trust.
Ruggieri maintains that Jimenez is only a front for the wealthy Jennings, who in a 1999 interview with Business Week magazine said that if his company were sued, he would "go away until the litigation passes by, then re-form and build guns to the new standard — if there is a new standard."
Maxfield, who is entering his senior year in high school and hopes to study marine biology or paleontology in college, said it frustrates and angers him that Jennings is, in his view, trying to pull a fast one.
"It was his idea to do this," Maxfield said, referring to Jennings' pre-trial testimony that he designed the gun to be unloaded in a firing position to solve a jamming problem. "He should take full responsibility."
Maxfield hasn't decided what the sculpture would be, and isn't sure what he'd do with the other equipment.
"I was thinking I could make wheelchairs for other kids or something like that," he said, "but we might just completely destroy it."
The fundraising and media attention has supplied Maxfield with a new sense of purpose — a chance to do something for others in a life that requires others to do practically everything for him.
Stansberry said she worries about how her son will handle the disappointment if he loses the auction.
"Every day that's all he talks about, getting these guns off the street so no other kids will be hurt," she said. "From a mom's perspective, I hope it really happens, because he has put his heart and soul in this."
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Come on, this is outrageous. First of all, the gun was not in any way defective. The babysitter may have been mentally defective, but that's hardly the fault of the gun manufacturer. Sure, the gun has to have the safety off in order to unload - but that's a convenience and a self-defense issue, and it certainly was not an illegal design mechanism, nor a hidden one that no one knew about.
Basically, a gun manufacturer is getting screwed by the American tort system - and by a victim who, quite frankly, is being selfish - for no reason other than a lawyer was able to a)manipulate the jury selection process to his benefit (he probably had a bunch of soccor moms on the jury), and b)convince the twelve retards that the gun manufacturer had partial responsibility for the actions of the babysitter.
This is just indicative of the "blame someone else, preferably someone with money" mindset of tort lawyers, mindless juries, and worst of all, US tort laws
Mon Aug 9, 4:16 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Sometimes Brandon Maxfield forgets. He will be cruising down the street with his best friend, talking about pro wrestling, music and girls, when it dawns on him with a familiar flash of embarassment that it's not his rainbow-spiked hair strangers are staring at.
"Then I'll be like, oh yeah, I'm in a wheelchair," said the Willits, Calif., teenager, who was paralyzed from the neck down after being shot by a babysitter a decade ago and gets around by manipulating mechanical sensors around his head.
Maxfield, 17, is in the final days of a tense, quixotic gambit to buy and dismantle the company that made the gun that left him a quadriplegic.
Last year the teen won a record $24 million judgment against Bryco Arms, its distribution arm and its owner. Bryco was forced into bankruptcy, and on Thursday, a federal judge in Florida will auction off 75,600 unassembled guns and other remaining assets.
Maxfield hopes to buy the inventory, melt it down and create a sculpture from the metal. It is tempting to see divine retribution in such a scheme, but the teen and his lawyer, Richard Ruggieri, insist revenge is not their motivation — they simply want to make sure no one else is hurt.
"It started with horror, the realization that — notwithstanding the fact that we had this unanimous finding of defect — there was nothing in the law to prevent them from putting these defective guns back on the market," said Ruggieri, who took on Maxfield's case in 2001 when no other lawyers would.
Ned Nashban, the lawyer representing Bryco owner Bruce Jennings in the bankruptcy, described Maxfield's acquisition attempt as a publicity stunt that only has delayed the gun maker's efforts to settle his debts.
"From our standpoint, it's not a moral question of keeping guns off the street or not," Nashban said. "Bankruptcy court is not the place to socially legislate. It's to create the most money to pay creditors."
Maxfield's life-changing injury happened when he was 7 and a 20-year-old family friend who was babysitting thought he heard a suspicious noise and grabbed a gun from a dresser drawer. The babysitter called Brandon's mother, who instructed him to immediately unload the .38-caliber pistol. While trying to do that, the babysitter accidentally pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck Brandon in the chin and went out through his neck, shattering his spine.
Since the accident, Maxfield has spent more than 500 days in the hospital and been treated for pneumonia 28 times. His spine is degenerating, and doctors say a metal rod must eventuallly be inserted in his neck to support it. But that will limit the mobility of his head, the only body part he can fully control.
"I always wanted to protect my kids and this is something you can't reverse and you can't erase," said Sue Stansberry, Maxfield's mother. "I wish now I had locked it up in a locked case. I didn't do that, and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life."
A jury in Oakland assigned more than half the blame for what happened to the boy's parents and the babysitter who fired the gun. But they said the gun maker also was liable because the pistol could only be unloaded when its trigger safety catch was switched off.
The jury awarded damages totaling $50.9 million — an amount calculated to compensate Maxfield for pain and suffering, future medical and educational expenses, lost earnings and diminished life expectancy.
The trust established to guard the funds has collected $8.75 million from an ex-wife of Jennings and from the insurance company of the firm that distributed the gun to the pawnshop where Maxfield's parents bought it.
Since neither the parents nor the babysitter have any money, the $24 million awarded from Jennings and his companies represent most of what Maxfield can expect to get.
But he has yet to collect any money from Jennings, who shuttered his Costa Mesa, Calif.-based factory and moved to Florida. Jennings laid off 25 employees and put his manufacturing business into bankruptcy.
So far, Maxfield and Bryco's former foreman, Paul Jimenez, are the only interested buyers in the bankruptcy auction.
The bidding will start at $175,000, the amount raised through a non-profit organization Ruggieri set up to take donations over the Internet, since the damages won from the accident cannot be used for that purpose under the terms of the trust.
Ruggieri maintains that Jimenez is only a front for the wealthy Jennings, who in a 1999 interview with Business Week magazine said that if his company were sued, he would "go away until the litigation passes by, then re-form and build guns to the new standard — if there is a new standard."
Maxfield, who is entering his senior year in high school and hopes to study marine biology or paleontology in college, said it frustrates and angers him that Jennings is, in his view, trying to pull a fast one.
"It was his idea to do this," Maxfield said, referring to Jennings' pre-trial testimony that he designed the gun to be unloaded in a firing position to solve a jamming problem. "He should take full responsibility."
Maxfield hasn't decided what the sculpture would be, and isn't sure what he'd do with the other equipment.
"I was thinking I could make wheelchairs for other kids or something like that," he said, "but we might just completely destroy it."
The fundraising and media attention has supplied Maxfield with a new sense of purpose — a chance to do something for others in a life that requires others to do practically everything for him.
Stansberry said she worries about how her son will handle the disappointment if he loses the auction.
"Every day that's all he talks about, getting these guns off the street so no other kids will be hurt," she said. "From a mom's perspective, I hope it really happens, because he has put his heart and soul in this."
***************
Come on, this is outrageous. First of all, the gun was not in any way defective. The babysitter may have been mentally defective, but that's hardly the fault of the gun manufacturer. Sure, the gun has to have the safety off in order to unload - but that's a convenience and a self-defense issue, and it certainly was not an illegal design mechanism, nor a hidden one that no one knew about.
Basically, a gun manufacturer is getting screwed by the American tort system - and by a victim who, quite frankly, is being selfish - for no reason other than a lawyer was able to a)manipulate the jury selection process to his benefit (he probably had a bunch of soccor moms on the jury), and b)convince the twelve retards that the gun manufacturer had partial responsibility for the actions of the babysitter.
This is just indicative of the "blame someone else, preferably someone with money" mindset of tort lawyers, mindless juries, and worst of all, US tort laws
ACK!
Here Kid, look down the barrel of this gun while I try to unload it. Strange, unload the gun after hearing a suspicious sound but keep it loaded the rest of the time?
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