The short answer is, “Yes,” according to Independent Firearms Program Attorney Justin McShane. However, the Keystone State supplies a lot of legal protection for people against such suits. Click the video below to get the details.
So you’ve been involved in a shooting. And that you are the shooter. Naturally there’s going to be all sorts of questions that are running through your mind once you’re safe. And hopefully by then you have called U.S. Law Shield. Our after-hours emergency line works 100% of the time.
You call us, we’re going to be there for you. One of the questions that’s going to come up is, can you be sued in civil court? Meaning trying to take your money away from you in Pennsylvania. And the answer that is absolutely.
Even if the district attorney’s office, or the attorney general’s office, or whomever, deems your shooting to be 100 percent right and righteous, and decides not to charge you criminally, that doesn’t stop someone from suing you, because the sad truth is there is absolutely no test there’s nothing to stop someone from suing someone for any or no reason the only thing you have to do is write even on a napkin your complaint which only has to include very limited amount of information in a demand for money and then have a certain amount of money and go file it in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Even if you have a letter or you have something that gives evidence that you gave a righteous shoot, you can’t just like post that in the courthouse and magically that stops the lawsuit from happening. What would happen, and what will happen, because here’s one sad thing about life, if you have something someone will try and take it away from you.
And in particular if it’s a righteous shooting typically it’s going to be a bad guy, a very bad guy, and there’s going to be a family member that’s left behind probably wasn’t involved in that person’s life whatsoever and now wants to portray that person of some sort of walking saint and that he didn’t deserve what happened to him, despite him being completely in the wrong and because you have things, and you have money, and you have something, they’re going to try and take it away from you.
Most home owners insurance absolutely does not cover an intentional use of a firearm in self-defense, an intentional discharge of a firearm in any way, shape, or form. So that’s why you would have U.S. Law Shield. But having U.S. Law Shield doesn’t stop the lawsuit but what it does is gets us involved right away as the lawyers and we file for what’s called “summary judgment.” Summary judgment is a filing saying even if everything that the person who suing you is true, it gets rid of a lawsuit right then and there, because under the Castle Doctrine, under Stand Your Ground, and under various mechanisms in the law, when you have a righteous self-defense type of situation where there is no issue of fact, then we can file that summary judgment and try and get you out of court as soon as humanly possible.
So again, it doesn’t just magically stop the lawsuit from happening, what it does do is get you out of it very early on rather than prolonging through depositions and pretrial litigation and trial. What it does is it stops it much earlier on. So unfortunately even under any scenario in Pennsylvania a righteous killing that happens even if blessed by the district attorney’s office does not stop or preclude a lawsuit from happening, but what it does do is that it’s strong evidence that we can use in the summary aspect of it for summary ruling in your favor to get out of a lawsuit as soon as possible.
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