## Facts

- A 12-year-old boy read a sixteen-page shooting-sports advertising supplement included in a September 1988 issue of *Boys’ Life* magazine.
- The supplement was sponsored by a shooting-sports trade organization and included firearms and ammunition advertisements, articles describing organized shooting sports, and a firearm-safety checklist.
- After reading the supplement, the boy and friends found an old rifle and a .22-caliber cartridge; while handling the rifle, it discharged and fatally shot the boy.
- The boy’s mother sued the magazine’s publisher, the sponsor, and a firearms manufacturer/advertiser, alleging the supplement motivated minors to handle firearms without adult supervision and without adequate warnings.
- The plaintiff asserted negligence (negligent publication/failure to warn), strict products liability (treating the magazine content as a defective product), and related theories including an alleged statutory violation based on offers to sell firearms to minors and an analogy to attractive nuisance.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for all defendants, and the plaintiff appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether, under Texas law, publishers and advertisers owe a tort duty to refrain from publishing or to add warnings when content might motivate a minor to engage in unsafe firearm activity.
2. Whether the informational and promotional content of a magazine supplement can be treated as a “product” for strict products liability purposes.
3. Whether firearms advertisements in the supplement constituted unlawful offers to sell firearms to minors under Texas Penal Code § 46.07.
4. Whether attractive nuisance or similar doctrines can be extended from premises liability to printed publications.

## Decision

- The court affirmed summary judgment for all defendants.
- Texas law did not recognize a cause of action, on these facts, for harms allegedly resulting from publication of an article or advertisement.
- No legal duty arose to refrain from publishing the supplement or to provide additional warnings beyond what was included.
- Strict products liability did not apply because the supplement’s content was not a “product.”
- The advertisements were not prohibited offers to sell firearms to minors under Texas Penal Code § 46.07.
- Attractive nuisance principles were inapplicable to publications and were not extended to create publisher liability.

## Legal Principles

- Negligence requires a legally recognized duty; Texas courts weigh foreseeability and risk against the social utility of the challenged conduct when evaluating whether to recognize a duty in a new setting.
- Absent a recognized duty, Texas law does not impose liability on publishers for injuries allegedly caused by readers’ later misuse of lawful information or advertising, particularly where the publication includes safety-oriented material.
- Strict products liability under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A applies to defective products, not to ideas or information conveyed in printed content.
- General firearms advertisements, without a specific transaction directed at a particular minor, do not constitute unlawful offers to sell firearms to minors under Texas Penal Code § 46.07.
- Attractive nuisance is a premises-liability doctrine tied to conditions on land and does not apply to printed publications.

## Conclusion

The court held that the plaintiff’s theories sought an unrecognized expansion of Texas tort law and affirmed summary judgment because neither negligence duty nor strict products liability applies to magazine content that allegedly motivates unsafe conduct resulting in injury or death.


Way v. Boy Scouts of Am., 856 S.W.2d 230 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1993)