Minnesota’s Fleet Farm gun sale lawsuit heads to trial

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Three years ago, Minnesota sued Fleet Farm, alleging that the store negligently sold firearms. In an order filed Oct. 1, the U.S. District Court for Minnesota held that the case is going to trial.

In October 2022, Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Fleet Farm. The complaint makes allegations that the company negligently sold firearms to straw purchasers, contributing to gun trafficking. Straw purchasers are people who illegally purchase guns for those who cannot legally purchase the firearms on their own.

The state alleged that Fleet Farm sold at least 37 firearms to 2 straw purchasers over 16 months. One of the firearms was used in a mass shooting that killed one person and injured 14 at the Truck Park Bar in St. Paul. While the two people who bought the guns were convicted of federal crimes related to the straw purchase, many of the guns that were purchased were not recovered.

The complaint alleged multiple causes of action. These include aiding-and-abetting, negligence, negligence per se, negligent entrustment, public nuisance, and violation of the Minnesota Gun Control Act.

Fleet Farm had previously moved to dismiss the lawsuit, but this was denied in 2023.

In this stage of the litigation, Fleet Farm asserted that there was lack of parens patriae standing (a protective role over citizens), lack of proximate causation, and failure as a matter of law. However, the court concluded that the negligence, negligence per se, public nuisance, and some of the claims that Fleet Farm violated the Minnesota Gun Control Act will go to trial.

The court found that Minnesota has parens patriae standing to pursue its claims against Fleet Farm, rejecting the company’s argument that the state was merely representing private victims of the Truck Park shooting. It held that the state’s allegations extend beyond individual harms, addressing “ongoing and diffuse harms to the entire population of Minnesota arising from unlawful gun sales and the continued circulation of unrecovered firearms.” It emphasized that the state has a legitimate quasi-sovereign interest in protecting the health and safety of its residents from increased gun trafficking and violence.

Additionally, the court concluded that Minnesota presented enough evidence for a jury to decide whether Fleet Farm’s conduct was a proximate cause of gun trafficking and the Truck Park shooting. Rejecting Fleet Farm’s argument that intervening criminal acts broke the causal chain, the court held that a jury could reasonably find that selling the firearms to the two individuals “foreseeably leads to increased gun trafficking and gun violence.”

Judge John Tunheim wrote, “The record shows that [convicted straw purchaser Jerome] Horton displayed textbook indicators of straw purchasing—so much so that Fleet Farm later used his transactions as training examples.

The court also determined that most of the state’s claims against Fleet Farm may proceed, finding that genuine issues of fact remain for trial on public nuisance, negligence, negligence per se, and parts of the Minnesota Gun Control Act claim. It held that a jury could find that the weapons sold by Fleet Farm still pose a threat to public safety as they are unrecovered.

“A jury could reasonably conclude that those risks affect a considerable number of Minnesotans,” Tunheim wrote.

The court did dismiss the aiding-and-abetting and negligent entrustment claims. It explained that “suspicion—even reasonable suspicion—does not establish actual knowledge.” The court concluded that, because Minnesota failed to show that Fleet Farm knew that the individuals were straw purchasers, the aiding and abetting claim was dismissed. It dismissed the negligent entrustment claim as well, noting that “Minnesota has not recognized negligent entrustment in the context of retail firearm sales.”

Fleet Farm has not responded to request for comment.

“Today’s ruling means Minnesota will have the opportunity to prove in court that Fleet Farm violated the law and jeopardized the safety of Minnesotans,” Ellison said in a statement after the ruling. “It is essential that we hold individuals who commit gun violence accountable, and if businesses break the law and contribute to that violence, they must be held accountable as well.”

The court will set the trial date soon.