Case 1:21-cv-11269-FDS Document 67 Filed 11/22/21 Page 12 of 58
courts routinely reject claims that they have any legal duty to protect foreign sovereigns from derivative harms.3 The absence of duty is especially clear here, where Mexico does not even allege that the defendants make private sales in Mexico. Fifth, Mexico fails to state a “public nuisance” claim. Numerous courts in multiple contexts, including in cases involving firearms, have held that the public-nuisance doctrine does not apply to the manufacture and sale of lawful products. Otherwise, companies would be subject to an endless chain of liability based on the misuse of their lawful and non-defective products by third parties they cannot control. Finally, Mexico cannot invoke Mexican tort law to impose liability that would not be allowed under U.S. law. Under bedrock principles of international law, a foreign nation cannot use its own law to reach across borders and impose liability based on conduct in another country that was lawful when it occurred there. By trying to do so, Mexico is effectively seeking to impose its own gun control policies on U.S. firearms companies in disregard of the choices made by domestic legislatures and embedded in the federal and many state constitutions. At bottom, this case implicates a clash of national values. Whereas the United States recognizes the right to keep and bear arms, Mexico has all but eliminated private gun ownership. Mexico can, of course, impose gun control within its own borders. But in this case it seeks to reach outside its borders and punish firearms sales that are not only lawful but constitutionally protected in the United States. By seeking to bankrupt U.S. gun makers, this gambit not only threatens America’s constitutional freedoms, but also the careful balance of firearms regulations set by Congress and state legislatures. It also tries to use the judiciary as a tool for circumventing
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See SEIU Health & Welfare Fund v. Philip Morris Inc., 249 F.3d 1068, 1074 (D.C. Cir. 2001); State of São Paulo of Federative Republic of Braz. v. Am. Tobacco Co., 919 A.2d 1116, 1126 (Del. 2007); Republic of Venez. ex rel. Garrido v. Philip Morris Cos., 827 So. 2d 339, 341 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2002).
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