Parents not liable for giving gun to drug-using son, appeals court says.

The Arizona court of appeals has held that the parents of a man who accidentally shot and injured a friend while using marijuana owed no duty to the injured man. (Martin v. Schroeder, 105 P.3d 577 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2005).) The plaintiff, David Martin, sued his friend's parents, saying they knew their son was a former drug addict but gave him the handgun anyway, violating a federal law against giving firearms to known drug users.

Matt Schroeder started using marijuana regularly in high school. When his parents, Grant and Cathy, found out, they obtained treatment for him and continued to monitor his drug use after his rehabilitation, even requiring him to take periodic random drug tests.

At age 18, Schroeder moved out of his parents' home. He married, had a child, and began working as a security guard. A few years later, he asked his parents to buy him a handgun, explaining that owning one would help him get a promotion. Because he was not yet 21 years old and could not legally buy a gun for himself, his parents agreed.

Nine months later, Schroeder and David Martin were smoking marijuana together when Schroeder accidentally shot Martin in the head. Martin survived but was injured. He then sued Schroeder's parents, alleging that they were liable because they had purchased the gun for their son even though they knew he had a drug problem. Martin cited [section] 922(d) of the Federal Gun Control Act, which prohibits giving a gun to someone who "is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance," to support his claim that the actions of Grant and Cathy Schroeder constituted negligence.

The trial court granted summary judgment to the Schroeders, finding that they did not owe a common law duty to Martin and did not violate the federal law.

The appeals court dismissed Martin's claim of negligent entrustment, saying that "past addiction to marijuana, without more, does not render the former addict permanently incompetent to receive a firearm as a matter of law for purposes of determining whether the transferor who has knowledge of the prior addiction owes a duty to an injured third party."

The court agreed that giving a gun to a drug user constituted negligence, noting that the federal act was passed because "Congress was concerned that unlawful drug users and addicts with firearms would intentionally and recklessly cause harm to others, which favors using the act to establish a duty and a standard of care."

Furthermore, the court found, "common sense dictates against giving a firearm to an unlawful drug user or an addict." It cited other cases where violations of state and federal gun laws were enough to establish negligence.

But the court also said Martin failed to prove the Schroeders had violated the statute. During the trial, Cathy Schroeder testified that she "felt very comfortable that [her son] was on the right track" and no longer had a drug problem. She said she would not have bought the gun for her son if she thought he was still using drugs.

Martin introduced testimony to suggest that Schroeder was still addicted to drugs and that his parents knew this, but the court failed to find this evidence strong enough to overturn the trial court decision.