“Our inquiry is whether the deaths of James, Steger, and Hadley were the reasonably foreseeable result of the defendants’ creation and distribution of their games, movie, and Internet sites.” —Boggs, Circuit Judge 

Facts: Michael Carneal was a 14-year-old freshman student in high school in Paducah, Kentucky. Carneal regularly played violent interactive video and computer games that involved the player shooting virtual opponents with computer guns and other weapons. Carneal also watched violent videotaped movies and Internet sites. Carneal took a .22-caliber pistol and five shotguns into the lobby of his high school and shot several of his fellow students, killing three and wounding many others. The three students killed were Jessica James, Kayce Steger, and Nicole Hadley. The parents of the three dead children sued the producers and distributors of the violent video games and movies that Carneal had watched previous to the shooting. The parents sued to recover damages for wrongful death, alleging that the defendants were negligent in producing and distributing such games and movies to Carneal. The U.S. district court applied Kentucky law and held that the defendants did not owe or breach a duty to the plaintiffs and therefore were not liable for negligence. The plaintiffs appealed. 

Issue: Are the video and movie producers liable to the plaintiffs for selling and licensing violent video games and movies to Carneal, who killed the plaintiffs’ three children? 

Language of the Court: Our inquiry is whether the deaths of James, Steger, and Hadley were the reasonably foreseeable result of the defendants’ creation and distribution of their games, movie, and Internet sites. It appears simply impossible to predict that these games, movie, and Internet sites would incite a young person to violence. We find that it is simply too far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen (an activity undertaken by millions) to shooting people in a classroom (an activity undertaken by a handful, at most) for Carneal’s actions to have been reasonably foreseeable to the manufacturers of the media that Carneal played and viewed. 

Decision: The court of appeals held that the defendant video game and movie producers and distributors were not liable to the plaintiffs. 

Ethics Questions: Do producers and distributors owe a duty to society not to produce and distribute violent games and movies? Are any free speech issues involved in this case?