The Separatists used the B1 Battle Droid and B2 Super Battle Droid during the Clone Wars against civilians. Can Baktoid Combat Autom, the manufacture of the droids, be sued under any legal theories for injuries and deaths caused by their droids? What can we learn from claims against gun manufacturers on whether these cases would be successful? Can litigation over drone strikes offer any legal relief?

Factual Background of the Battle Droids

The Battle Droids were the foot soldiers of the Separatists and required command systems to operate. The B2 Super Battle Droid were larger, tougher, and more expensive droids that did not require a command system to operate.

Can Baktoid Combat Autom Be Sued under Common Law Negligence for Product Defect? 

Survivors of a shooting rampage sued a gun manufacture claiming the negligent product design. The test for recovery “involves a balancing of the likelihood of harm to be expected from a machine with a given design and the gravity of harm if it happens against the burden of the precaution which would be effective to avoid the harm.” Merrill v. Navegar, Inc., 26 Cal. 4th 465, 479 (2001). The plaintiff’s theory was the benefit of making assault weapons “available to the general public –which were nonexistent–did not outweigh the risk they might inflict serious injury or death when discharged.” Id, 470.

The plaintiff was barred from recovery on this theory because Civ. Code, § 1714.4(a) prohibited such recovery, because gun manufacturers may not be held liable in a products liability action. Id. The cited code section stated:

(a) In a products liability action, no firearm or ammunition shall be deemed defective in design on the basis that the benefits of the product do not outweigh the risk of injury posed by its potential to cause serious injury, damage, or death when discharged.

(b) For purposes of this section:

(1) The potential of a firearm or ammunition to cause serious injury, damage, or death when discharged does not make the product defective in design.

(2) Injuries or damages resulting from the discharge of a firearm or ammunition are not proximately caused by its potential to cause serious injury, damage, or death, but are proximately caused by the actual discharge of the product.

Cal. Civ. Code section 1714.4 (repealed in 2002).

The Civil Code section was updated in 2003 to now state the following:

Everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself. The design, distribution, or marketing of firearms and ammunition is not exempt from the duty to use ordinary care and skill that is required by this section. The extent of liability in these cases is defined by the Title on Compensatory Relief.

Cal. Civ. Code § 1714(a).

If gun manufacturer liability is litigated as a classic negligence case, the test is whether there was (1) duty; (2) breach; (3) causation; and (4) damages. Ileto v. Glock Inc., 349 F.3d 1191, 1203 (9th Cir. 2003), citing  Martinez v. Pacific Bell, 225 Cal. App. 3d 1557; see also 6 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law, Torts § 732, at 60-61 (9th ed. 1988).

The 9^th Circuit found in a case with allegations the defendant gun manufacturers created a secondary firearms market that was intentionally directed at supplying guns to prohibited gun purchasers had a question of fact of whether the defendant manufactures had a duty of care to prevent those who were prohibited from buying guns from buying guns, thus breaching their duty of care. Ileto v. Glock Inc., 349 F.3d 1191, 1204 (9th Cir. 2003).

In subsequent litigation against gun manufacturers and distributors for failing to take proactive steps to control the practices of the downstream sale of guns with a high risk of guns being diverted to criminals, the court found there was not enough evidence to support the plaintiff’s case. In re Firearm Cases, 126 Cal. App. 4th 959, 972 (2005).

The above cases do not point to relief for those injured by droids during the Clone Wars, but do point to potential recovery with those who might have purchased Battle Droids in a secondary market after the Clone Wars.

Can Baktoid Combat Autom Be Sued under Product Defect Litigation

In a case where a three-year-old child found and fatally shot himself with a gun, the plaintiffs claimed the gun was defective and unreasonably dangerous as designed because of a lack of child safety devices. The court found there was no malfunction of the gun, because it acted as the gun was intended to act. As there was no malfunction, there was no risk/utility test for further analysis. Halliday v. Sturm, Ruger & Co., 792 A.2d 1145, 1146 (Md. 2002).

The analysis for Battle Droids would have a very similar result if the issue were solely whether Battle Droids were dangerous. As a weapon of war, they are indented to kill enemy combatants and thus inherently dangerous. However, the issue can turn to product defect litigation if the droids kill those who are not enemy combatants. For example, in the episodes Innocents of Ryloth and Liberty on Ryloth, Battle Droids are clearly used against the civilian population of Ryloth. This raises the question of whether Battle Droids had any programming to only target military targets and not civilians. If they had been programmed for military targets and fired on civilians, this opens the issue of war crimes, and whether the droids committed a war crime because of a program defect.

Can Baktoid Combat Autom Be Sued under Ultrahazardous Activity?

In a civil lawsuit against a gun manufacturer after a husband attempted to murder his wife which left her paralyzed, the plaintiff sued under the tort doctrine of ultrahazardous activity. She had a novel theory “since handguns are manufactured to injure or kill people, and since it is a statistical certainty that some handguns are actually used to injure or kill people, the handgun manufacturer should bear strict liability for the resulting damages.” Copier by & Through Lindsey v. Smith & Wesson Corp., 138 F.3d 833, 834 (10th Cir. 1998).

The test for strict liability under Utah law from an abnormally dangerous activity for harm resulting from the activity consists of the following factors:

(a) existence of a high degree of risk of some harm to the person, land or chattels of others;

(b) likelihood that the harm that results from it will be great;

(c) inability to eliminate the risk by the exercise of reasonable care;

(d) extent to which the activity is not a matter of common usage;

(e) inappropriateness of the activity to the place where it is carried on; and

(f) extent to which its value to the community is outweighed by its dangerous attributes.

Copier, at *836.

The court rejected the plaintiff’s arguments, because the test applies to the use of handguns, not the manufacture. Id. As prior case law addressed strict liability for gasoline leaking from the operation of gas stations or the use of dynamite for blasting, the issue was the use, not the manufacture of those materials. As the rules for strict liability were inapplicable to the manufacture of handguns, there was no recovery for the plaintiff. Id.

While these cases seem harmful to those who would want to sue a droid manufacturer, it does raise a possible recovery for how Battle Droids were used in combat. War is inherently an ultrahazardous activity. However, consider Lok Durd’s use of the experimental deforestation weapon in “Jedi Crash.” The use of the weapon itself on the Lurmen would have been a war crime, because the Lurmen were a civilian population under the Separatists control (Geneva Convention Article 4); the extermination of protected persons (Lurmen) would violate Article 32 of the Geneva Convention; and the weapon was an unnecessary scientific experiment. As Battle Droids were used in this war crime, there could be an argument that the droids’ actions should be measured as an ultra hazardous activity.

Is the use of Drones comparable to Droids?

In a case with a plaintiff claiming a drone strike in Khashamir was “mistaken and not justified,” the court held that issues at bar were political questions beyond the court’s judgment. Ahmed Salem Bin Ali Jaber v. United States, 861 F.3d 241, 247 (2017). The Court explained, “it is not the role of the Judiciary to second-guess the determination of the Executive, in coordination with the Legislature, that the interests of the U.S. call for a particular military action in the ongoing War on Terror.” Id. It is one thing to review the Executive Branch holding an enemy combatant; it is another to second-guess whether it was right to fire a missile. Id.

What does this mean for recovering against Baktoid Combat Autom for damages from droids? The manufacturer would be the wrong defendant; as such questions would be best framed against the Separatist government officials in a war crimes trial, not in a product defect or negligence action.

Can Baktoid Combat Autom Be Free From Liability?

It is extremely difficult for victims of droids to recover in court for damages sustained from Battle Droids and Super Battle Droids. There are serious issues of war crimes committed by Separatists who used Battle Droids against civilians, but that is a basis for international criminal courts, not civil litigation. There could be liability for Baktoid Combat Autom for Battle Droids that were sold in secondary markets used outside of the Clone Wars, but there is significant challenges to recovery under that theory as well.