A teenager accidentally shot Royce Ryan with a semi- automatic pistol that lacked critical safety features.

Trial Lawyers for Public Justice announced today that a settlement had been reached in a landmark products liability lawsuit against Smith & Wesson for defectively designing and failing to childproof a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. Ryan v. Koehler International, Inc., filed in state court in Philadelphia, sought damages for Royce Ryan, accidentally shot in the face when he was eight years old by another young boy playing with a gun that they thought was unloaded. The suit charged that the shooting would never have taken place if the gun – a Smith & Wesson Model 915 – was properly designed. The settlement marks the first time a gun manufacturer has paid to settle a claim for failing to childproof a gun.
            “We can’t prevent Royce’s injuries, but hope this settlement will help make gun companies childproof guns and prevent other children from being injured,” said Lori Ryan, Royce Ryan’s mother. “We are thankful that Royce’s huge medical needs will now be met.” 
            “This settlement underscores that those who manufacture, distribute, and sell guns have as much duty to act responsibly as those who manufacture, distribute, and sell other dangerous products,” said TLPJ Executive Director Arthur H. Bryant. “Smith & Wesson acted responsibly by settling this important case. If Smith & Wesson had designed the gun responsibly, Royce Ryan would not have been injured and this case would never have been brought.”
             The case stems from the accidental shooting of then eight-year-old Royce Ryan. On April 15, 1998, Royce was playing with three friends in Wichita, Kansas. One friend, fifteen-year-old Jared McMunn, asked the others if they wanted to see a gun and then took them to see a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol in his parents’ dresser. Jared thought the gun was unloaded and, while showing it to the other kids, squeezed the trigger. But there was one bullet in the chamber. The gun fired and the bullet struck Royce just below his left eye, exiting the back of his head. Royce survived, but was critically wounded and suffered significant brain damage. 
            On May 22, 2000, Royce and his mother filed suit in Pennsylvania state court against Smith & Wesson, alleging that the Model 915 was defective in three ways. First, the gun had a defective magazine disconnect safety, a device that is supposed to prevent a gun from firing when the magazine is removed. The Model 915's magazine disconnect safety sometimes allowed the gun to be fired even when the magazine was removed. Second, the gun lacked a “loaded chamber indicator,” a simple device that shows whether a gun is unloaded or there is a bullet in the chamber. Third, the gun was not child-proofed in any way, despite numerous inexpensive designs and technologies readily available for that purpose.
            “This is a shooting that should never have taken place and a lawsuit that should never have been necessary,” said co-lead counsel Robert L. Pottroff of Myers, Pottroff & Ball in Manhattan, Kansas. “We hope this settlement will help spur the gun industry to take appropriate steps to prevent the thousands of wholly unintended and readily avoidable shootings and deaths that occur each year. I am very pleased with the settlement but even more pleased with the fact the gun manufacturers are now beginning to include simple locking devices on some of their guns. I hope this marks the beginning of a transition to childproof guns.”
            Thousands of children in America are killed or injured each year in unintentional shootings. According to a 1991 U.S. General Accounting Office report, about one in every three accidental shooting deaths in the U.S. could be prevented by just two simple kinds of safety devices – loaded chamber indicators and childproof gun safeties. Despite that fact, most gun manufacturers have steadfastly refused to incorporate these safety devices into their products. 
            “Smith & Wesson knew that accidental shootings like this were taking place throughout America , but it failed to take the most basic, inexpensive steps possible to prevent them,” said co-lead counsel Robert Mongeluzzi of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky in Philadelphia. “That’s why it was essential to hold Smith & Wesson accountable.”
            Plaintiffs’ co-counsel in Ryan also included TLPJ Staff Attorney Victoria W. Ni, Jay Heidrick of Myers, Pottroff & Ball, and Stephen W. Brown of Megaffin, Brown & Lynch in Pratt, Kansas.
            Trial Lawyers for Public Justice is the only public interest law firm dedicated to using trial lawyers’ skills and resources to advance the public good. Founded in 1982, TLPJ utilizes a network of more than 3,000 of the nation’s outstanding trial lawyers to pursue precedent-setting and socially significant litigation. TLPJ has a wide-ranging litigation docket in the areas of consumer rights, worker safety, civil rights and liberties, toxic torts, environmental protection, and access to the courts. TLPJ is the principal project of The TLPJ Foundation, a not-for-profit membership organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a West Coast office in Oakland , California. The TLPJ web site address is www.tlpj.org. TLPJ’s Pennsylvania State Coordinator is Bernard W. Smalley, Sr., tel. 215-735-3864.
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