Hetherton v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
593 F.2d 526 (1979)
Convicted felon Lloyd Fullman bought a rifle and rifle-labeled ammunition (also usable in pistols and revolvers) from Sears, Roebuck & Co. (Sears) (defendant), which under a Delaware statute should have required two local freeholders to positively identify anyone buying a "deadly weapon," a category that includes pistol and revolver cartridges; Sears never obtained that identification from Fullman. Six weeks later, Fullman robbed a restaurant and shot security guard James Hetherton (plaintiff) in the head, seriously injuring him, before being caught and convicted. Hetherton and his wife sued Sears for negligence in selling the ammunition without following the statute's identification requirement; Sears argued the ammunition was labeled for rifle use and thus outside the deadly-weapon identification requirement, and the trial court granted Sears summary judgment.
Whether a retailer's violation of a public-safety statute requiring buyer identification for deadly-weapon sales constitutes negligence per se when the ammunition sold, though labeled for rifle use, is also usable in handguns covered by the statute.