Third District Judge Glenn Iwasaki will consider and rule on arguments offered Monday asking for the dismissal of a wrongful-death lawsuit against a pawn shop and a clerk who sold a gun to Trolley Square mass murderer Suleman Talovic.
The suit was filed by Carolyn Tuft, who was shot during the crime spree but survived. Her daughter, Kirsten Elizabeth Hinckley, also was shot by the young Bosnian killer and died from her wounds.
Police shot and killed Talovic on Feb. 12, 2007, after he entered the shopping mall and, for reasons that have never been explained, began to open fire on customers. Talovic killed five people and shot and injured four others.
Tuft suffered several wounds during the rampage.
She said in her civil lawsuit that she now experiences permanent pain, has had to endure many medical treatments and operations, and also says she is living with a potentially fatal situation because she is getting lead poisoning from shotgun pellets that remain inside her body.
Tuft is seeking damages for wrongful death in connection with the slaying of her daughter, as well as negligence and claims of public nuisance.
The suit names Rocky Mountain Enterprises Inc., a Nevada company that operates Sportsman's FastCash in Salt Lake City, and gun dealer Westley Wayne Hill.
The suit contends that Hill sold the pistol-grip shotgun to the 18-year-old, who was legally too young to purchase such a weapon. It also maintains that the dealer knew or should have known that Talovic was from a war-ravaged part of the world where he had been exposed to considerable violence.
Hill pleaded guilty in federal court to a misdemeanor charge of failing to maintain a record because he did not fill in one line on a 33-line form that indicated he had seen a second piece of identification from Talovic when the sale transpired. As part of a plea bargain, a felony charge of unlawful transfer of a firearm was dismissed and Hill was put on probation for one year.
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