WAUPACA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Fleet Farm says it should not be held liable for an employee’s suicide, and asked for a civil lawsuit to be dismissed.
In December, 2020, Ryan Ames stole a handgun and ammunition from the Fleet Farm he worked at before returning home and shooting himself with the gun. Bruce and Bambi Ames say that while Ryan was employed at Fleet Farm, he was given “unfettered, unsupervised, and unmonitored access to firearms and ammunition.”
In the Waupaca County lawsuit, filed last December, the family says that the Midwest retailer negligently caused the death of their son by not properly securing or monitoring the guns.
In a 16-page brief filed last week, Fleet Farm, argues that under judicial public policy, “the defendant’s negligence is too remote from the injury to impose liability– incorporates the superseding cause doctrine, and the rule that suicide is a superseding cause.”
Following previous court rulings, “Ryan’s suicide is considered a superseding cause that breaks the chain of causation, relieving Fleet Farm from any alleged liability for his death,” the store argues.
“The Complaint clearly states that Fleet Farm did not know that Ryan took the gun. Nothing suggests that anyone affiliated with Fleet Farm knew that Ryan planned to take a handgun from the store or that he did it. The only reasonable inference is that Ryan did not want anyone at Fleet Farm to know he took the gun, because he was not allowed to do so. The plaintiffs can certainly argue that Fleet Farm was negligent if it allowed Ryan unsupervised access to the storage area, but that negligence in no way supports the contention that Fleet Farm supplied him with a handgun to take home for the night,” the brief states.
No trial has been scheduled. The case returns to court Friday for a motions hearing.
