A Lake County judge on Tuesday ruled that lawsuits filed by families of slain victims and survivors of the Highland Park mass shooting can proceed against Smith & Wesson and others.
Lake County Judge Jorge Ortiz issued a 34-page ruling and a 14-page ruling on Tuesday in response to motions filed by Smith & Wesson, online gun distributor Bud’s Gun Shop and Illinois gun retailer Red Dot Arms.
The judge denied the majority of the motions filed by the three defendants seeking that the court dismiss the lawsuits against the entities — allowing the lawsuits, which were first filed in 2022, to proceed to trial.
However, Ortiz granted Smith and Wesson’s motion to dismiss two of the counts in the plaintiffs’ complaints.
“Patriotic to his core, Eduardo Uvaldo exemplified American values, working his entire adult life to support his family. He lost his life in a mass shooting that resulted from one of the most extraordinary abuses in American corporate history—Smith & Wesson’s choice to leverage the M&P 15’s branding as a weapon of war to feed its bottom line no matter the consequences,” said Alinor Sterling, Partner at Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder and attorney for some of the families.
“Today’s decision brings Mr. Uvaldo’s family one step closer to holding Smith & Wesson and these gun dealers accountable and fulfilling their ultimate goal: keeping other families from knowing their indescribable pain,” Sterling said.
The judge scheduled a case management conference for May 1 to give the parties involved time to review his rulings.
A series of lawsuits were filed in late 2022 by multiple law firms that represent surviving victims, estates of slain victims and family members who witnessed their loved ones being shot in the July 4, 2022, mass shooting in Highland Park.
The defendants in the lawsuits are Robert Crimo III, Robert Crimo Jr., Smith & Wesson, online gun distributor Bud’s Gun Shop, Illinois gun retailer Red Dot Arms.
The lawsuits allege that Smith & Wesson’s marketing of the weapon used in the Fourth of July shooting was unfair and deceptive.
One suit says the marketing is misleading because it implies a non-existent association between Smith & Wesson’s “M&P,” short for military and police, line of assault rifles and the United States Military.
The suit also says that Smith & Wesson’s marketing and sales practices promote and sell an image that “caters to and attracts individuals” like the shooter.
Attorneys say the shooting was the “foreseeable and entirely preventable result of a chain of events initiated by Smith & Wesson.”
Online distributor Bud’s Gun Shop and retailer Red Dot Arms are accused of negligently and illegally selling the murder weapon, an M&P 15 semi-automatic rifle, to Robert Crimo III in violation of the assault weapons bans in Highwood and Highland Park.
Crimo, now 24, of Highwood, pleaded guilty to all charges against him last month as opening arguments were set to begin in his trial for killing the seven victims and shooting 48 others.
“Tragically, Mr. Uvaldo’s life ended on Independence Day in what has also become an American tradition—innocent victims murdered in mass shootings carried out with a weapon of war. It’s about time that Smith & Wesson answers for its actions, and we’re grateful that they will now have their day in court,” said attorney Josh Koskoff, Partner at Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder.
Alla Lefkowitz, senior director of affirmative litigation at Everytown Law, previously said that Crimo III used a gun that was “deceptively and unfairly marketed” to him by Smith & Wesson, “illegally sold” to him by Bud’s Gun Shop and Red Dot Arms and “negligently put in his hands” by his father.
“Each and every one of those entities and individuals bears responsibility for the devastation at the parade, and our lawsuit seeks to hold them accountable for the damage their actions led to,” Lefkowitz said.
Leah Sundheim, the daughter of Jacki Sundheim, who was shot and killed, said she had lived for 28 years in a world where her mother was just a phone call away.
“After the phone rang on July 4th and my dad had to tell me that my mom went to the parade, that she was shot, that she was dead. My life is now broken into a before and an after. Before when my family was whole, when my childhood home was filled with yarn and laughter. After July 4th there is silence, there is grief, and there is the weight of her loss filling up every corner of my life,” Sundheim said.
Jon Strauss, whose father Steven Strauss was shot and killed, said there are no words that can “truly convey the trauma of having a loved one stolen from you; violently snatched away, with no rhyme or reason, never to return.”
“Our dad had been stolen from us and we would never get him back. The bullets that ended our father’s long life also forever altered the path of our family. Now, we would share the unwelcome distinction of being yet another American family shattered by random gun violence,” Strauss said.