PEOPLE BY JAMES v. Wayne LaPierre et al., Defendants. (2024)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Joel M. Cohen, J.), entered December 4, 2023, which, insofar as appealed from as limited by the briefs, granted plaintiff's motion to strike defendant The National Rifle Association of America's (The NRA) jury demand to the extent it sought a jury trial of issues related to equitable relief sought by the Attorney General, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The court properly denied The NRA's request to submit issues bearing on equitable remedies to the jury (see Tull v. United States, 481 U.S. 412, 425–426, 107 S.Ct. 1831, 95 L.Ed.2d 365 [1987]).  The court correctly found, among other things, that submitting those issues to the jury would raise numerous practical problems, such as requiring the jury to answer questions about then-present or future circumstances.  The NRA interprets the general right to a jury trial under Non–Profit Corporation Law § 112(b)(1) in a manner that would produce “unreasonable” and “absurd” results (People ex rel. McCurdy v. Warden, Westchester County Corr. Facility, 36 N.Y.3d 251, 262, 140 N.Y.S.3d 170, 163 N.E.3d 1087 [2020] [internal quotation marks omitted]).  We note that The NRA acknowledges that the trial court, rather than the jury, must exercise its discretion to decide whether to grant equitable remedies and to fashion those remedies.  This Court has already ruled in this action that “whether particular equitable remedies would constitute a proper exercise of discretion is for Supreme Court to decide in the first instance” (People v. National Rifle Assn. of Am., 222 A.D.3d 498, 498, 201 N.Y.S.3d 385 [1st Dept. 2023]).