There is a notable torts verdict in Maryland where a jury handed down a multi-million dollar verdict against Walmart for selling a shotgun to an employee who used it to commit suicide. The verdict raises difficult questions over Walmart’s responsibility for the suicide of Jacob Mace, who lied to store employees, under common law torts.
The family of Mace brought the lawsuit, alleging that Walmart employees knew that he was suicidal and struggling with mental health issues. They focused on his communications with a co-worker Christina O’Shea in which he wrote about feeling “broken” and “nothing helps. I just want it to end. Goodbye.” He also wrote that he intended to “Slit wrists. Buy a gun.”
O’Shea told assistant manager, Brennan Jones, about her concerns. Jones said that police should be called and, when Mace returned to work, spoke to Mace about the company’s counseling services and asked him how he was doing. He told him that “You know, we were worried about you,” but Mace assured him that he was fine.
Neither Jones nor O’Shea was involved in selling the gun to Mace. The sale was made by Eric McLaughlin, who testified that he had no idea of Mace’s mental health struggles. Mace told McLaughlin that the gun would be a present for his wife.
The family argued that Jones should have alerted other store managers about the conversation between O’Shea and himself. Moreover, the awareness of employees like Jones was then attributed to the company as a whole.
I find the verdict concerning on a number of levels. First, employers have to straddle a difficult line between protecting employees’ privacy and addressing threats to employees or the public. In this case, Mace insisted that he was doing fine and Jones had taken steps to confirm his status.
Second, Mace lied to the Walmart employee. There was no reason why McLaughlin would refuse the sale.
The case reminds me of Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, which I teach in my torts class. In the 1974 case, Prosinjit Podder, an Indian Graduate student at Berkeley, fell in love with Tatiana Tarasoff. When she stated that she wanted to date other men, Podder went to counseling at the University Health Service and was treated by psychologist, Dr. Lawrence Moore. When he told Moore that he wanted to get a gun and kill Tarasoff, Moore sent a letter to campus police, who interviewed Podder and decided that he was not a risk. Podder then went ahead and murdered Tarasoff.
Justice Mathew O. Tobriner held that “… the confidential character of patient-psychotherapist communications must yield to the extent that disclosure is essential to avert danger to others. The protective privilege ends where the public peril begins.”
As a result, the hospital was held liable for the criminal actions of a third party — something that usually (but not always) cuts off proximate causation. It also rejects strong arguments made by doctors that such liability would create a chilling effect on counseling. A large number of patients often express their anger by focusing it on individuals and stating an intent to “kill that guy.” In the vast majority of such cases, the open disclosure allows the matter to be addressed and defused. However, if the patient knows that the doctor will have to tell authorities, such feelings are less likely to be expressed and addressed.
In this case, you have a retailer with an employee who expressed suicidal ideations. Jones did the right thing in seeking police involvement and then personally speaking with Mace. According to this verdict, the store should have barred the purchase. But for how long? What steps are necessary to satisfy this duty?
As with Tarasoff, there is no clear line on what employers should do and when they should do it.
The Second Amendment protects the right to gun ownership, though that right is not absolute. Additionally, this employee has privacy rights. Indeed, a memo to all employees could have been the subject of a different tort action for the disclosure of embarrassing private information, negligent infliction of emotional distress, or other claims.
From the perspective of Jones, he had one employee who expressed concerns over another employee’s mental health. He spoke to the second employee, who assured him that he was doing fine. Under these circumstances, Mace could have purchased the gun from any other store.
This is a tragic case, and it may be difficult to overturn on appeal. I understand the family’s anger that more was not done to save Mace from himself. I am unsure of how far the store could have gone. Jones would have needed to tell all employees not to sell Mace, any sharp objects, guns, or products capable of inducing overdoses or harm. That could trigger a lawsuit. If he fired or suspended Mace, he might be sued under disability laws.
If he did fire or suspend Mace, it is not clear that a gun sale could be withheld without something more than the word of a friend when the individual is denying such ideations. The right move is to seek police intervention, which Jones suggested.
The complaint does allege that Walmart had a “blacklist” for individuals who were suspected of any mental problems. If so, that does raise a legitimate question about why Mace was not added to the list, at least as a precautionary matter. However, these are difficult and fluid circumstances for a manager to address, particularly in a relatively short time period.
The jury awarded approximately $2.5 million in economic damages and $8 million in non-economic damages. Those damages may be reduced due to state caps on non-economic damages.
Here is the complaint in the case: Brady v. Walmart
OT
Minneapolis is in full secession. Where’s “Crazy Abe” Lincoln when you need him? He’s reinforcing a cross-border transfer remittance program in Somalia. Film at eleven!
“Minneapolis is in full secession. Where’s “Crazy Abe” Lincoln when you need him?” Mad King George/X/Anonymous has never left Professor Turley’s blog…
Why don’t you have articles by author X on the Marxists Internet Archive?
https://www.marxists.org/admin/janitor/faq.htm
The writer is alive and well and politically active. The MIA’s Charter forbids us from building an archive for a writer who is still politically active. There are several reasons for this:
(1) It ensures that the MIA stays out of current disputes and
(2) remains independent of all political parties and groups; Also,
(3) if a writer is still alive, they can build their own web site. This does not prevent the MIA from using material also from politically active writers in an editorial role or in support of a subject section, so long as we have the author’s permission.
Felony Investigation Into Obama’s Fingerprints All Over Investigations of Trump And Clinton
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2026/01/22/obamas_fingerprints_all_over_investigations_of_trump_and_clinton_1160121.html?mc_cid=496c73ade2&mc_eid=febb5a4d8f
You would never see this story in the New York Times or any other Democrat analyst or commentator. Unless perhaps to save from condemnation with faint criticism.
In the run-up to the 2016 Democratic Party convention, FBI Director James Comey gained access to at least eight thumb drives containing large volumes of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s sensitive State Department emails – as well as many directly from President Obama – that had been been compromised by five different foreign intelligence agency’s hackers.
That explosive new batch of physical evidence, now revealed in recently declassified documents provided by CIA Director John Radcliff, confirmed what CIA Director John Brennan had been telling both President Obama and Comey in multiple presidential briefings for years.
Instead of including that evidence in his ongoing investigation of Clinton opened after referrals from House hearings, Comey rushed to order the closure of that investigation into whether Clinton improperly transmitted and received classified material from a private, unsecured server she kept in her basement. Comey also took the unprecedented and extraordinary step of bypassing the attorney general and personally exonerating Clinton of wrongdoing during an unusual press conference on July 5, 2016.
Although such trips take long prior planning, just a few short hours after Comey exonerated her regarding her use of a private email server, Obama flew with Clinton aboard Air Force One to help launch her multicity campaign tour during which he officially endorsed Clinton as his preferred White House successor.
Comey’s decision to remove the cloud of scandal over Clinton’s campaign, allowing the president to get on with the business of of using his presidential resources to campaign for her even before she was the nominee, is just one avenue of investigation the Justice Department is pursuing in wide-ranging probes whose targets include a figure largely unscathed by his era’s scandals: former President Barack Obama.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said prosecutors are investigating, among other things, “possible coordination between the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.”
Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has impaneled a grand jury to hear evidence related to an alleged “grand criminal conspiracy” by Obama and Biden officials to enlist law enforcement and intelligence agencies in rigging elections and carrying out political espionage against Donald Trump.
Would this same prog-infested jury of activists also find that butterfly in Indonesia what is flapping its wings responsible for the ice storm flowing across America at this time? This sort of illogic will lead to a never-ending line of grifters upon the capitalist system (I do think that is their end game).
Anti-gun jurisdiction renders anti-gun verdict.
Film at 11.
Excellent article. Perhaps, the Judge allowed and perhaps even promoted the loaded question (a form of complex question that contains a controversial assumption, e.g., a presumption of guilt, common example: “Have you stopped beating your wife lately”). In this case, the Pro Se 5 ish “civil” suit fallacious prosecution strategy in the form of “Have you stopped selling guns to anyone you have not disseminated unverified and/or Protected Personal Information(PPI), including every human in the universe yet?”.
The realities are actually much simpler:
1. Like Boasberg kangaroo courts, Walmart’s defense didn’t (and will not have) a chance
2. Seeing this strategy and its success — pillage and destroy strategies are now obvious options for the Ghengas Khan-like progressive oligarch allies and champions in MD. One would have to be an idiot to create or maintain a business therein.
3. If you haven’t figured out how this could possibly happened in America, perhaps this will help: https://www.listal.com/viewimage/27964839
Difficult case. After the fact it seems so clear to many but as it occurs the actions of the person are muddled and often variable. Suicidal individuals can be very adept at hiding their symptoms or put them to rest when they have “spelled the beans to some people” and then suddenly come back and say “I’m fine now, just had a bad day”. And then they act normal right up till they kill themselves. I question the verdict against Walmart because the people listening or hearing his complaints had limited options. I do question where the family was in all of this. Were they sucked into the “I’m fine” scenario or did they ignore obvious signs. Was the lawsuit a result of guilt they felt for not taking action and an attempt to lessen the guilt. Strange there is no mention of a psychiatrist being involved
Even well trained and experienced mental health professionals can miss something like this. For every suicide there are uncounted cases of threats made but not carried out.
As is often typical a suicide leaves everyone questioning what they could have done different.
GEB,
Well said.
I question to the degree the family went to, to get this person the mental health he needed. I think there in lays the responsibility, with the family. If they could not get him the professional help he needed, why is there an expectation for Wal-Mart employees to take up that responsibility?
Why didn’t the family notify local PD or FBI that their child was suicidal so that his background check could have been denied? Seems like the family is more at fault that Walmart.
Good thing you’re not a lawyer.
“Why didn’t the family notify local PD or FBI that their child was suicidal . . .”
Actually, they did. The family knew damn well that he was suicidal — because he had been hospitalized three times before killing himself.
Good question, Sam. But it appears that the CA Supreme Court focused not on Moore’s contacting police, but on his failure to notify the victim.
“In our view, however, once a therapist does in fact determine, or under applicable professional standards reasonably should have determined, that a patient poses a serious danger of violence to others, he bears a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect the foreseeable victim of that danger.”
(see Secs. 3 and 7)
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ca-supreme-court/1830445.html
(from lin) (weather affecting my laptop. stay warm!)
Sam: My reply to to you (10:08 below) was intended to address “Dr. Moore” in your 9:13 comment. Sorry that it got posted here instead. My wifi is going in and out, so I think i goofed by posting it under your more recent post without realizing the time difference and content.
And if the manager had informed all the other managers, Walmart would have been sued for sharing employee private and sensitive information. The liberal mind is mysterious in it’s workings.
Wonderful. I was reading the posts and enjoying the reasoned responses and discussions. Then it degenerated into name calling and insults. Come on people grow up.
“Come on people grow up.” Um… that’s like name calling. Right?
You still don’t recognize the distinction between criticizing a behavior vs. castigating the entire individual?
Did you ever? I remember a time in the 1990s when it was considered boorish and unadultlike to give negative feedback as a personal insult.
Then there was DJT. An entire generation has renounced the essentials of civilized conversation.
A great deal of national problem-solving capacity has been lost. Go back and look at all the social and legal reforms accomplished from 1960-2000. Automobile safety, environmental pollution, women’s equal rights, child sex abuse, financial fraud, the Italian mafias, drunk driving, airline safety, animal treatment, racial bigotry, space exploration. We made progress in all these areas. Now, we’re flailing and prone to wildly oscillating policies.
The reason: incivility, manipulative infowarfare, and shows of disrespect based on mere policy disagreement.
This case is yet another that exposes the central misunderstanding of the 2nd amendment. What was meant originally by members of the militia (police and military) being able to own guns migrated into individuals owning guns while not belonging to a sanctioned militia….
This is problematic in a functionally fascist, racist, uneducated and corrupt state such as the U.S. We see evidence of this everyday here on the blog in commentary by a collection of morons who are incapable of trying to engage on almost any topic without relying entirely on memes, rhetoric, personal insult and a quick pivot to implicit reference to their willingness to solve conflict through gunplay first.
Party on ya butt lickin hound dogs.
I see your point. You should never own a gun. You’re mentally unstable.
Your pedantic child level talking points ramble never cease to amaze me, an adult so delusional is impressive stuff – or just a troll who thinks they are critical to reducing intelligent exchanges to playground level.
Just like you?
This comment reflects a central misunderstanding of the Second Amendment
The right to effective self-defense is obvious, foundational. Dead people have no civil rights. Why bother to document it in the Constitution?
Because gun owners contribute to the security of society. Only citizens who have developed marksmanship skills, at home, in their spare time, can effectively repel invaders and suppress insurrectionists.