State of Minnesota v. Fleet Farm LLC

Background

The State of Minnesota sued Fleet Farm LLC, Fleet Farm Group LLC, and Fleet Farm Wholesale Supply Co. LLC. The State alleged that Fleet Farm sold firearms to people it knew or should have known were straw purchasers—people buying firearms for others who were not legally eligible to obtain or possess them.

The State asserted five state-law claims: negligence, public nuisance, aiding and abetting, negligent entrustment, and negligence per se. A negligence per se claim uses a statute’s legal standard as the applicable standard of care. Fleet Farm previously asked the court to dismiss all five claims, arguing that the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act barred the claims or that Minnesota had not alleged enough facts. On June 27, 2023, the court denied that motion, ruling that the claims were not barred by that federal law and were plausibly alleged.

Motion for interlocutory appeal

Fleet Farm asked the court to certify two questions for an interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. An interlocutory appeal is an appeal before the district court has issued a final decision in the case.

The first proposed question was whether the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act preempted, or barred, Minnesota’s negligence, public nuisance, aiding-and-abetting, and negligent-entrustment claims. The second was whether Minnesota law barred the negligence per se claim because it relied on statutes that did not create private civil claims and were not designed to protect a sufficiently specific group.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), certification requires three things: a controlling legal question, substantial grounds for disagreement about that question, and a likelihood that an immediate appeal would materially advance the end of the litigation. Certification is discretionary and is generally reserved for exceptional cases.

Controlling legal question

The court determined that the proposed questions, considered collectively, could affect all five claims. But it concluded that not every issue presented a pure question of law. The court said that questions about whether the federal statute preempted the aiding-and-abetting and negligent-entrustment claims involved statutory interpretation and legal standards. However, those issues alone would not end the case or substantially affect its progress because the other claims would remain and would involve overlapping discovery.

The court concluded that deciding preemption for the negligence and public nuisance claims would require examining whether Fleet Farm’s conduct violated the state and federal statutes underlying those claims. That required applying law to the facts, rather than deciding only a pure legal question.

The court likewise concluded that deciding whether Minnesota law barred the negligence per se claim would require applying the law to the allegations in the complaint. At the motion-to-dismiss stage, the court had to accept the alleged facts as true and determine whether the State had drawn reasonable inferences supporting Fleet Farm’s potential liability. The court therefore found that this issue was not a pure question of law for an interlocutory appeal.

Substantial ground for disagreement

The court found no substantial ground for disagreement concerning the negligence and public nuisance claims. The cases Fleet Farm cited involved different statutes or claims and did not address claims partly based on statutes regulating firearms.

The court also found that Fleet Farm had not shown substantial disagreement concerning the aiding-and-abetting claim. Fleet Farm cited no decisions holding that the federal statute’s list of aiding-and-abetting claims covered by an exception was exhaustive. The absence of decisions or the fact that an issue was new did not, by itself, establish substantial disagreement.

The court recognized that there was conflicting authority about whether the federal statute’s preemption analysis should be conducted claim by claim for the negligent-entrustment claim. It stated that this was the only issue for which Fleet Farm might have shown a substantial ground for disagreement. Even so, the court had already determined that this issue was not a controlling legal question because resolving it would not terminate or substantially affect the litigation.

The court rejected Fleet Farm’s argument that Minnesota law barred the negligence per se claim because the underlying statutes lacked private causes of action or protected too broad a group. The court stated that negligence per se claims may be based on penal statutes that do not create private civil claims. It also reaffirmed its earlier conclusion that the gun-control statutes were designed to protect Minnesotans from gun violence rather than merely to promote the State’s general welfare.

Effect on the litigation

The court separately concluded that an immediate appeal would not materially advance the end of the case. Regardless of how the Eighth Circuit ruled on one or two issues, the parties would still litigate the facts concerning Fleet Farm’s alleged sales to straw purchasers. Those facts were intertwined with all five claims, and the State’s other claims would remain unaffected by an immediate appeal.

Disposition

Judge Tunheim denied Defendants’ Motion for Certification Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), Docket No. 42. The order denied Fleet Farm’s request to certify the two proposed questions for interlocutory appeal. The order did not decide the underlying merits of Minnesota’s claims.