## Facts

- The City of Chicago and Cook County sued numerous handgun manufacturers, distributors, and retail dealers for harms associated with gun violence.
- After negligent entrustment was dismissed, plaintiffs proceeded on a public-nuisance theory based on defendants’ lawful design, marketing, and distribution practices.
- Plaintiffs alleged defendants knowingly facilitated illegal acquisition and use of handguns in Chicago by oversupplying markets with weaker gun laws and by inadequate screening and supervision of dealers.
- Plaintiffs alleged certain dealers sold to apparent straw purchasers and to buyers whose conduct allegedly indicated illegal intent.
- Plaintiffs alleged some guns were designed and marketed to increase appeal for criminal use (e.g., small concealable handguns and high-capacity weapons).
- Plaintiffs relied on ATF trace data and statistical allegations to link defendants’ products and distribution channels to firearms recovered in Chicago crimes.
- Plaintiffs sought injunctive relief altering industry practices and damages for governmental expenditures (law enforcement, medical response, prosecution), plus punitive damages.

## Issues

1. Whether the complaint stated a cognizable public-nuisance claim based on lawful, regulated manufacture and sale of firearms.
2. Whether defendants owed a duty, under nuisance doctrine or otherwise, to prevent harms and public costs caused by third-party criminal misuse of firearms.
3. Whether defendants’ conduct was the proximate cause of plaintiffs’ alleged injuries despite intervening intentional criminal acts.
4. Whether claims for governmental response costs were barred by the economic loss doctrine and the municipal cost-recovery rule.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of the second amended complaint with prejudice for failure to state a claim.
- The court held plaintiffs did not plead an actionable interference with a public right cognizable in Illinois public-nuisance law.
- The court held defendants owed no legally cognizable duty to plaintiffs to prevent generalized criminal misuse by remote third parties.
- The court held proximate cause was lacking because independent criminal acts were superseding causes as a matter of law.
- The court held that, even if nuisance and causation were assumed, plaintiffs’ claims for governmental service costs were barred by the economic loss doctrine and the municipal cost-recovery rule absent statutory authorization.

## Legal Principles

- A public nuisance requires unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public; aggregating individual injuries from criminal acts does not, by itself, establish a distinct “public right.”
- Courts will not treat lawful, heavily regulated commercial activity as a public nuisance absent allegations of unlawful conduct or a recognized nuisance-based interference with a public right.
- Nuisance claims remain constrained by tort duty and policy limits; a manufacturer generally is not liable for generalized harms from independent criminal misuse of its lawful product by third parties beyond its control.
- Statistical correlations and trace data may show product presence in crime but do not alone establish legal causation where intervening intentional criminal acts drive the injury.
- Government entities generally may not recover routine public-service expenditures in tort without legislative authorization; purely economic governmental losses are typically unrecoverable under the economic loss doctrine and the municipal cost-recovery rule.

## Conclusion

The court refused to extend Illinois public-nuisance law to impose industry-wide liability on firearms manufacturers, distributors, and dealers for harms and public costs resulting from third-party criminal gun use, finding no cognizable public-right interference, no duty, no proximate cause, and, in any event, barred municipal cost recovery.


City of Chicago v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp., 821 N.E.2d 1099 (Ill. 2004)