## Facts

- Patsy Ann Byers, a convenience-store clerk in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, was shot during an armed robbery on March 8, 1995, and was left paraplegic.
- The shooter, Sarah Edmondson, and her boyfriend, Benjamin Darrus, traveled from Oklahoma on a multi-state trip during which Darrus committed a prior armed-robbery murder in Mississippi.
- Byers and her family sued Edmondson and Darrus for damages and later added the film’s director and producers/distributors (the Stone/Warner defendants).
- Plaintiffs alleged the film *Natural Born Killers* inspired the crimes, relying in part on Edmondson’s statements that she and Darrus watched the film repeatedly (sometimes while using LSD) and that the film influenced their decision to take a gun and commit robberies.
- The Stone/Warner defendants moved for summary judgment, asserting First Amendment protection and the absence of tort duty/causation as a matter of law.
- The trial court granted summary judgment dismissing the Stone/Warner defendants; plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the film constituted unprotected speech (incitement to imminent lawless action or obscenity) permitting tort liability for harms caused by third-party criminals.
2. Whether, under Louisiana duty–risk analysis, the filmmaker defendants owed a duty to Byers covering the risk that viewers would commit violent crimes allegedly influenced by the film.
3. Whether the alleged causal connection between the film and the shooting was legally sufficient to defeat summary judgment given intervening criminal conduct.

## Decision

- The court of appeal affirmed summary judgment for the Stone/Warner defendants.
- The film was protected expression and did not qualify as incitement or obscenity.
- The Stone/Warner defendants owed no legal duty to Byers that encompassed the criminal acts of Edmondson and Darrus.
- Any asserted causal link between the film and the shooting was too remote; the intentional criminal acts of the perpetrators were intervening causes.
- Even crediting Edmondson’s affidavit about influence, plaintiffs failed to show a genuine issue of material fact on duty and scope of liability.

## Legal Principles

- Expressive works remain protected by the First Amendment unless they fall within narrow unprotected categories such as incitement (advocacy intended and likely to produce imminent lawless action) or obscenity (as defined by the governing obscenity test).
- A viewer’s later criminal conduct allegedly influenced by a film does not, without more, convert protected expression into actionable incitement.
- Under Louisiana duty–risk analysis, liability requires a duty whose scope includes the particular risk that occurred; policy and foreseeability limit extending a creator’s duty to unpredictable third-party crimes.
- Intentional criminal acts by third parties commonly function as intervening and superseding causes, severing tort liability absent a special relationship or other basis to impose a duty to prevent the misconduct.
- Summary judgment is proper when the nonmovant cannot produce evidence creating a triable issue on essential elements such as duty and legally cognizable causation.

## Conclusion

The court held that the filmmakers and distributors could not be held liable for a convenience-store shooting committed by viewers allegedly influenced by the film because the work was constitutionally protected and Louisiana tort law did not recognize a duty extending to such remote, intervening criminal acts; summary judgment dismissing the media defendants was affirmed.


Byers v. Edmondson, 826 So. 2d 551 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. 2002)