Tuesday, March 12, 1991
LAWYER SAYS GUN MAKER NEGLIGENT
YOUNG MOTHER DIED IN AN ACCIDENT.
COLT SAYS REVOLVER WAS MISUSED.
Christine Dean's future with her new baby ended when a gun out of the Wild West cut short Dean's life.
And Monday in U.S. District Court, lawyers argued that Dean's little girl should be compensated because the gun manufacturer was negligent in issuing an unsafe weapon whose design had not been updated since it was first made in the Wild West days of the 1870s.
Dean, 20, was killed in February 1985 when a friend, Dennis Tinder, accidentally shot her while she was visiting his home in Holden. Lawyers said Dean picked up the gun and looked into it. When Tinder attempted to unload the Colt single-action revolver, the gun went off and a bullet hit Dean in the face.
Dean's daughter, Jennifer, now 6 years old, is named as the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed last year against the weapons company.
Vic Bergman, lawyer for Jennifer Dean, told the jury Monday that the Colt revolver in the case, which was made in 1959, was flawed and lacked safety devices. "Colt claimed it was popular in the Wild West," Bergman said. "This is a 1959 product, with 1873 state-of-the-art."
A longtime friend of Dean's told the jury Dean lived for motherhood, especially after her first baby died. "She really wanted to be a mother," Kathy Smith testified. "She loved it."
Lawyers for Colt said Dean's death was the tragic result of carelessness on behalf of the person handling the gun, not the people who designed and manufactured it.
"This case is about responsibility," James Dorr said in his opening statement. "Christine Dean was shot on Feb. 3 because the gun was being mishandled and the basic rules of handling any firearm were not followed."
The trial is scheduled to continue today.
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Section: METROPOLITAN
Page: B6
By AMY SNIDER, Staff Writer
All content © 1991 THE KANSAS CITY STAR and may not be republished without permission.
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