Judge tosses lawsuits against gun dealers

Sellers won’t be held responsible for actions of Klebold and Harris in Columbine tragedy

By Kevin Vaughan, News Staff Writer
March 21, 2002
Three gun dealers aren’t liable for selling weapons used by Columbine killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in dismissing five lawsuits.

The decisions by Chief Judge Lewis Babcock came in suits filed by the families of one student who was killed in the April 20, 1999, attack, and four others who were wounded.

The families have the option of appealing Babcock’s ruling.

Babcock found, among other things, that gun show operator J.D. Tanner and two dealers who leased space from him, James R. Washington and Ronald F. Hartmann, “owed no duty of care” to the shooting victims as a result of the legal sale of a shotgun.

“I think that’s what it really comes down to — does that 5- or 10-minute legal transaction allow someone to conclude that someone is going to commit a criminal act with that weapon, and the answer is no, that’s not enough,” said Michael Waters, who represented Hartmann.

Jim Cederberg, an attorney for wounded student Richard Castaldo, said Wednesday afternoon he hadn’t seen the ruling and had no reaction to it.

Attorneys for the families of slain student Isaiah Shoels and wounded students Sean Graves, Lance Kirklin and Mark Taylor could not be reached for comment.

Gordon Vaughan, Washington’s attorney, called the Columbine attack a “terribly tragic occurrence.”

“At the time, I had two kids in high school, so I have great and deep sympathy for the parents and the survivors,” Vaughan said. “But it’s simply not a situation that was caused by any of the defendants that were dismissed in this case.”

Tanner, operator of the Tanner Gun Show, Washington and Hartmann had been accused by the families of negligence. Tanner’s attorney couldn’t be reached.

Specifically, the families accused Washington and Hartmann of selling a shotgun to Klebold’s prom date, Robyn Anderson, that was used in the attack on the school. They also accused Tanner of knowing that unlawful gun sales were occurring at his show.

In dismissing the Castaldo, Graves, Kirklin and Taylor suits, Babcock noted that the young men had not alleged that they were wounded by the shotgun sold by Washington and Hartmann.

Babcock also found that blaming Tanner for the wounds suffered by Castaldo, Graves, Kirklin and Taylor “requires connecting ‘if . . . then . . . ‘ propositions which are speculative at best.”

In the Shoels lawsuit, Babcock found that no special relationship existed between Washington and Hartmann and either those who bought the weapons or the victims. He also used the “if . . . then . . . propositions” in dismissing that suit.

Babcock had earlier dismissed the same five suits, and others, that had been filed against officials at both the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the school district.

A sixth lawsuit naming Tanner, Washington and Hartmann, which was filed by injured Columbine student Patrick Ireland, was not included in Babcock’s rulings.