Wal-Mart Sued Over Sale of Bullets Used in Pennsylvania Murders

[fleur-de-lisa]

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/wal-mart-sued-over-sale-bullets-used-pennsylvania-murders-n492791

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, faces a lawsuit in Pennsylvania claiming store employees negligently allowed an underage, intoxicated customer to buy a box of bullets later used to commit three murders. The lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia by families of the victims, seeks compensatory and punitive damages from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and several employees at its Easton, Pennsylvania, store, where the bullets were purchased by Robert Jourdain on July 5 at 2:56 a.m. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company operates stores under the Wal-Mart name.

"At no time did the Wal-Mart defendants ... require that Robert Jourdain present appropriate and valid identification," the lawsuit says. "Nor did the defendants take any precautions to determine whether Mr. Jourdain was intoxicated."

Jourdain, then 20, walked out of the store with the bullets and handed them to Todd West, then 22, who loaded them into his .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, the suit says. About 15 minutes later, West randomly shot and killed a stranger, Kory Ketrow, 22, in Easton. Twenty minutes after that, he murdered Francine Ramos, 32, and Trevor Gray, 21, in Allentown. Both of them were strangers to him.

Until recently, sellers of guns and ammunition assumed they were protected from liability by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. But last year, in a Wisconsin case, a jury found a Milwaukee gun store liable for selling a gun to a 21-year-old customer even though clerks had serious misgivings that the buyer was illegally buying the gun for someone else.

[Snobblevitch]

1. I assure you that Walmart legal counsel

never assumed they would not be liable if they did not follow all ATF laws when selling firearms and ammunition.