Brady v. Walmart Inc.

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KAYLA M. BRADY, et al. Plaintiffs v. WALMART INC., et al. Defendants

CIVIL No. 8:21-cv-01412-AAQ

United States District Court, D. Maryland

May 20, 2024

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

AJMEL A. QUERESHI, U.S. MAGISTRATE JUDGE

This is a case concerning a Walmart store's sale of a firearm to a man, Jacob Mace, who was experiencing a mental health crisis and subsequently ended his life using that firearm. Kayla Brady, the surviving spouse of Mr. Mace; together with Mr. Mace's mother, Debra McCreary; Mr. Mace's father Mark Mace; and Mr. Mace's two minor children (collectively, “Plaintiffs”), allege that Walmart Inc. and its subsidiary Wal-Mart Stores East, LP (“Walmart” or “Defendants”) were negligent in selling the firearm to Mr. Mace. Pending before the Court is Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment. ECF No. 70. The Motion has been fully briefed, and a hearing is not necessary under this Court's Local Rules. See Loc. R. 105.6 (D. Md. 2023). For the reasons discussed below, the Court will deny Defendants' Motion.

BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background

A. Mr. Mace's Employment at Walmart

Jacob Mace worked as a part-time maintenance associate at the Walmart Supercenter in California, Maryland (“the California store”), from March 2018 through May 2019 and again from September 2019 until his death in November 2019. See ECF No. 70-9, at 1, 3-4; ECF No. 79, at 4. As a maintenance associate, Mr. Mace was responsible for cleaning the store. See ECF No. 706, at 5. Mr. Mace's direct supervisor was Front End Coach Cybil Smith, who in turn was supervised by Brennan Jones, Co-Manager and “second in command” of the California store. ECF No. 79, at 11; ECF No. 70-9, at 3. During his tenure at Walmart, Mr. Mace became close friends with several of his coworkers, including Joel Barr, Jennifer Krebs, and Christina O'Shea. See ECF No. 70-14, at 3; ECF No. 70-15, at 3-4; ECF No. 70-16, at 5.

B. Walmart's Policies and Procedures Governing Firearm Sales

As one of approximately 1,800 Walmart stores holding a federal firearms license, the California store was required to follow federal and state laws as well as Walmart's own policies and procedures governing firearm sales. See ECF No. 70-1, at 3; ECF No. 70-4, at 1. Walmart's “foundational policy for firearms and ammunition sales” is “OP-16,” a “national policy that applies to all Walmart stores that sell firearms.” ECF No. 70-1, at 3 (citing ECF No. 70-3, at 3-4). Under OP-16, a Walmart employee can sell firearms only if they are a salaried member of management or a Sporting Goods Department associate, “undergo enhanced background screening,” and “attend an initial training program, followed by annual training thereafter.” Id. (citing ECF No. 70-4, at 2).

In November 2019, Walmart followed a three-step process for firearm sales. See id. at 4. First, a qualified associate would obtain the customer's government-issued identification and check it against the “denied” folder, a physical folder of files containing documentation of that store's previous firearm sale denials.^[1]See id.; ECF No. 70-3, at 15-17. If the store had previously denied a firearm sale to that customer, or if the customer's last name or home address matched that of someone else whom the store had previously denied a firearm sale - indicating a potential straw purchase^[2]- the associate would terminate the transaction. See ECF No. 70-1, at 4-5. Second, the customer would complete the “appropriate section” of Form 4473, which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives requires and, in addition to asking for basic information about the customer, “asks questions to determine whether the sale is prohibited” by federal law, including “whether the customer has ever been adjudicated mentally defective or committed to a mental institution.”^[3]Id. at 5. Third, the associate would complete the remainder of the Form 4473 and then use the customer's information to complete an electronic check, including an FBI background check and a screen of Walmart's internal database to ensure that neither the customer nor anyone sharing the customer's last name or home address had been denied a firearm sale at any other Walmart store. See id. at 5-6; ECF No. 70-3, at 18-21. If the FBI background check results revealed that the sale could proceed and the screen of Walmart's database was clear, OP-16 then required a salaried member of management to approve and finalize the transaction. See ECF No. 70-1, at 5-6; ECF No. 70-3, at 31. After approving the sale, the salaried member of management would, per OP-16, escort the customer out of the store before handing over the firearm. See ECF No. 70-1, at 6; ECF No. 70-3, at 31.

By November 2019, Walmart had also enacted at least three policies or mechanisms for preventing firearm sales to customers at risk of harming themselves or others. To start, while OP-16 allowed an associate to deny a firearm sale for any non-discriminatory reason, it specifically instructed associates that they should deny the sale of a firearm to a customer if they had “any reason to believe the customer might use the firearm to harm themselves or others.” ECF No. 701, at 4 (quoting ECF No. 70-3, at 32); see ECF No. 70-3, at 6. No one could override an associate's decision to deny a firearm sale. ECF No. 70-1, at 4 (citing ECF No. 70-3, at 32). Additionally, in October 2018, Walmart's corporate home office - where the company's “Global Investigations,” “Insider Threat,” and “Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Compliance” teams are housed - adopted a “block list,” to which “select associates” could add the names of individuals to prevent them from buying firearms from Walmart, even if the three-step process would otherwise authorize the sale. ECF No. 70-1, at 6. Specifically, if a customer's name was on the block list, then during the electronic check described above, Walmart's system “would indicate that the sale should be denied.” Id. at 6-7. Initially, only a limited number of Walmart employees knew about the block list, and Walmart did not have any “written policies or procedures related to the ‘block list'” until March 2020. Id. at 7. However, according to Walmart's corporate designee, Nicholas Colucci, Walmart's “violence[-]free workplace policy” required managers, upon learning that an individual was at imminent risk of harming themselves or others, to report such knowledge to the market asset protection manager. See ECF No. 79-18, at 17-18. This reporting process was intended to get information regarding individuals who posed a threat to themselves or others to Walmart's threat management team, see id., members of which had the ability to add individuals to the block list, see ECF No. 70-3, at 25.

C. Mr. Mace's Mental Health Crisis

Mr. Mace had experienced depression and suicidal thoughts since childhood and was formally diagnosed with major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder in June of 2019. See ECF No. 3, at 10. He talked about his mental illness and suicidal ideation with at least five other Walmart employees. See ECF No. 79-2, at 2-3; ECF No. 79-4, at 4; ECF No. 79-9, at 8-9; ECF No. 79-12, at 4; ECF No. 79-13, at 3. One such employee was Assistant Store Manager Renard Mackell, who approached Mr. Mace at some point in 2019^[4] upon noticing that Mr. Mace seemed frustrated. See ECF No. 79-9, at 2-3, 8. During this conversation, Mr. Mace shared that “he had had some previous mental health issues,” id. at 8, including that he had previously attempted suicide, but he stated that “things were getting better for him,” id. at 9.

According to Plaintiffs, on October 31, 2019, Mr. Mace began to experience an “acute mental health crisis.” ECF No. 79, at 5. Mr. Mace was admitted to the hospital on November 1, 2019, after his sister discovered him engaging in self-harm, and he was discharged on November 3, 2019. See id.; ECF No. 79-11, at 18. As a result, Mr. Mace was absent from his scheduled shifts on November 1, 2, and 3. See ECF No. 70-9, at 3. Plaintiff McCreary, Mr. Mace's mother, claims that after leaving Mr. Mace at the hospital on November 1, she drove to the California store and told a manager that Mr. Mace was in the hospital, though she did not share the reason for his hospitalization. See ECF No. 70-1, at 14; ECF No. 70-12, at 32-33. Because Walmart's hourly associates report absences through a call-out line and a third-party administrator manages all health-related information pertaining to associate absences, including doctor's notes and other documentation, Defendants allege that an individual store does not know specific details about an associate's absence beyond which of several general options the associate selected as the reason for their absence. See ECF No. 70-1, at 7-8.

Between November 3 and November 9, 2019, Mr. Mace went to the hospital for mental health treatment two more times. On November 6, Mr. Mace's therapist recommended that he seek inpatient treatment after he told her that he was experiencing suicidal thoughts. See ECF No. 79, at 5; ECF No. 70-18, at 2-3. Mr. Mace's friend and Walmart coworker Joel Barr drove him to the hospital, and Mr. Mace was discharged a few hours later. See ECF No. 79, at 5. The next day, November 7, Mr. Mace's sister called the police because Mr. Mace was indicating that he was going to harm himself. Id. The police took Mr. Mace to the hospital “as an emergency petition,” ECF No. 70-21, at 2, and he was again discharged after a few hours, ECF No. 79, at 5.

On the morning of November 9, 2019, Mr. Mace sent a text message (the “goodbye message”) indicating that he planned to end his life to several of his Walmart coworkers and friends. See id. at 5-7. Ms. O'Shea received this message while she was working at the California store and she called for...