Parents of Aurora shooting victim ordered to pay $200,000 in legal fees to ammo dealer

Jen Hayden

Daily Kos Staff

Monday August 03, 2015 · 12:34 PM PDT

2015/08/03 · 12:34

A federal judge has ordered the Phillip's family to pay up.

A federal judge has ordered the Phillip's family to pay up.

The parents of Jessica Ghawi, a 24-year-old woman gunned down by James Holmes in the 2012 Aurora theater massacre, tried to sue the online ammunition retailer who sold James Holmes the ammunition used in the attack. The case was dismissed before trial:

Thomas added that the case was dismissed before a trial could take place thanks to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA, a federal law passed by Congress and signed by George W. Bush in 2005.
“What PLCAA does is it provides very broad, blanket immunity from civil lawsuits for both gun manufacturers and gun dealers,” she said. “This is one example of a situation where somebody has tried to address liability, to go after bad actions of a dealer or manufacturer and PLCAA kept them from being able to do so.”

Adding insult to extreme injury, a federal judge has issued an order that will likely bankrupt them:

The family of 24-year-old Jessica Ghawi, a victim in the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, is faced with more than $200,000 in legal costs after a federal judge ordered them to pay attorney’s fees for four ammunition dealers the family attempted to sue.
“They have taken our daughter, and now they want to take our worldly goods,” Lonnie Phillips told MSNBC’s Tamron Hall in a televised interview earlier this week. “I think that’s a little much.”

In the ruling, the judge wrote "those who ignore a fire should be responsible for cost of suppressing it before it becomes a conflagration."

See more about the case, why the family dropped an appeal (hint, they can't afford it) and why they may have had a case, despite the PLCAA. Video at NBCBayArea.com.

Meanwhile, jurors took a step forward in a possible death sentence for James Holmes.

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