by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

The Cincinnati, OH, City Council unanimously voted on Apr. 30 to drop its four-year-old lawsuit against the gun industry on the advice of attorney Stanley Chesley, who has been representing the city in its legal action.

The vote came one day after the council’s Law Committee recommended that the lawsuit be dropped. Chesley had recommended that the suit be withdrawn without prejudice so it could be re-filed within a year.

Quoted by The Cincinnati Post, Chesley stated, “We are not walking away from the case or in any way suggesting the case may not have some validity.”

However, Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), held quite the opposite view. He told Gun Week that the city’s withdrawal from litigation is a strong indication that the lawsuit was without foundation. Bolstering his suspicion is the timing. Less than a month before the council vote, attorneys for the gun industry went to court, demanding that a judge require the city to produce evidence to substantiate the allegations made in the lawsuit. Industry attorneys wanted copies of police reports and depositions from police officers, among other materials.

The city complained that it would have placed a tremendous burden on the police department to produce those documents.

“Ending the lawsuit so soon after gunmakers demanded to see the evidence behind the city’s claims is a strong indication that the lawsuit was nothing but a flimsy sham all along,” Gottlieb said.

He noted that the lawsuit had been initially rejected by an appeals court, then reinstated by the state Supreme Court. He concurred with Chesley’s analysis that the case was “an uphill battle” for the city.

SAF is a chief plaintiff in a separate case against Cincinnati, surrounding Hamilton County and the state of Ohio, seeking to overturn the state’s nearly century-old ban on concealed carry. A Hamilton County Common Pleas Court and the state Court of Appeals have both found the law to be unconstitutional, and the case is now before the Ohio Supreme Court.

About the industry lawsuit, Gottlieb observed, “Cincinnati’s case was always more about political grandstanding than public safety, and city officials knew it. As soon as they were challenged to document their case, they folded.”

The city had set aside $100,000 to finance the case, but The Post reported that Chesley had not been charging the city for his time so far, instead working on a contingency, much the same as attorneys in the anti-tobacco lawsuits of the last decade. Reportedly, Chesley’s arrangement with the city was to take 20% of any pre-trial settlement, or 30% of any damages awarded by the court if the city won. Chesley reportedly had racked up an estimated $136,000 in expenses and $425,000 in billable hours while working on the case.

The city’s suit was filed in 1999, one of a rash of similar cases filed by over 30 cities around the country, with legal help from then-Handgun Control Inc., which later changed its name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.