From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 8:55 PM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - Kmart sued after clerk sold shotgun to suicide
victim

(In a prime example of our societies desire to avoid personal
responsibility, Kmart is sued after a clerk sold a shotgun to a suicide
victim. - Mike)

Kmart sued after clerk sold shotgun to suicide victim
----------
   In an apparent effort to make money from a personal tragedy,
   the parents of a 19-year-old man who committed suicide have
   sued Kmart for selling him a shotgun. (09/06/01)

http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20010905_1705.html

Kmart sued for wrongful death after clerk sold shotgun to 19-year-old
suicide victim

                     The Associated Press



SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Not long before his suicide, Ryan Eslinger appeared to
be responding to treatment for paranoid schizophrenia. He told his mother he
felt like he was waking from a coma. He told his father he loved him.

But on May 23, the 19-year-old committed suicide with a shotgun he'd bought
the previous day at Kmart. Eslinger's parents blame the store and they've
sued the Troy, Mich.-based retailer for wrongful death saying their
17-year-old clerk should not have sold him the gun.

During opening arguments Wednesday, Kmart attorney Rodney Parker told jurors
Ryan Eslinger, though mentally ill, was responsible for his own deliberate
act.

But Sandra and Phil Eslinger allege Kmart violated federal gun laws when
their sales clerk a high school acquaintance of Eslinger's sold him the
shotgun without seeing proper identification. Eslinger used his passport
that did not show his address, a requirement for gun-sale paperwork. The
Eslingers also allege Kmart was negligent in its hiring and employee
training.

"This case comes down to corporate greed and irresponsibility in the sale of
firearms," said James McKenna, the Eslingers' attorney.

Parker said that it is natural to feel sympathy for the Eslingers' loss but
the case is about personal responsibility and individual choices.

"Kmart did not cause Ryan Eslinger to kill himself. This was a deliberate,
intentional act," Parker said. "He was a very sick young man and he wanted
to die."

Eslinger was diagnosis with paranoid schizophrenia in 1995 and declared
legally mentally defective. He was involuntary committed in 1996 after
cutting his throat in a suicide attempt. But on the gun application form, he
denied he had ever been hospitalized for mental illness or adjudicated
mentally defective.

A day after buying the weapon, Sandra Eslinger went out of town and her son
returned to Kmart, where security manager Dan Willoughby assembled the
shotgun for him. That night, Eslinger killed himself.

"If she didn't see any danger signs, I don't know how (the Eslingers)
expected Kmart to see danger signs," Parker said.
www.matus1976.com