VANCOUVER—Taser International lost its bid Tuesday to quash a public inquiry report that found its products can kill.

British Columbia's Supreme Court rejected Taser's argument that it was not treated fairly by the inquiry into Robert Dziekanski's death, concluding it had “no merit.”

The Arizona-based weapons manufacturer has a long history of litigation against any suggestion the stun guns are unsafe. The company challenged inquiry commissioner Thomas Braidwood's findings after he released a report on the weapons last year.

Braidwood concluded Tasers have the capacity to affect the heart and trigger a fatal heart arrhythmia. He said it was difficult to precisely quantify that risk, but he described it as low.

Taser asked the court to throw out all of Braidwood's findings about safety and his subsequent recommendations, claiming the retired judge ignored dozens of medical studies provided by the company.

But B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Sewell ruled it's clear Braidwood carefully looked at the opinions of medical experts and his findings were reasonable.

“The petitioner's alternative argument before me was that the Study Commission Report's conclusion that conducted energy weapons have the capacity to cause death was patently unreasonable and unsupported by any credible evidence,” Sewell said his written ruling.

“I find no merit in this submission. It is quite clear to me that there were presentations made to the commissioner by medical experts and others to the effect that such weapons can cause serious harm and even death in exceptional circumstances.”

Sewell added there is nothing in Braidwood's report “which a fair-minded person would construe as an attack or criticism of the petitioner's reputation.”

Art Vertlieb, the inquiry commission's lawyer, said Sewell's ruling reinforced the quality of Braidwood's work.

“It's just another vindication of the excellent job that Commissioner Braidwood did,” Vertlieb said in an interview.

“Commissioner Braidwood bent over backwards to be fair to everybody, including Taser. They had every chance to come and present and send reports and give other people information.”

Braidwood stopped short of describing the ruling as vindication, but he said it confirms the inquiry's fairness.

“I read all the material carefully, as did my staff, and it was subject to discussion amongst us,” he said in an interview.

“We feel that the conclusions we reached in the report were helpful to the administration of the conduct of the police.”

Braidwood's report, the first of two into Dziekanski's death at Vancouver airport in October 2007, also said police forces in B.C. should continue to have access to the weapon. But the report said the benefits must be weighed against the risks and Braidwood called for restrictions on their use.

His recommendations were endorsed by the B.C. government and the RCMP. Dziekanski died after he was repeatedly jolted with an RCMP Taser.

David Neave, one of Taser's lawyers, said the company is still considering whether it will appeal the 19-page ruling.

“We're carefully reviewing the decision,” he said in an interview. “There's not much more that I can say about it at this time.”

Taser also argued in court that it should have had greater participation in the inquiry hearings and had a chance to review Braidwood's findings before they were made public.

Sewell disagreed.

“I have concluded that the Study Commission fully discharged any duty of fairness which it owed to the petitioner with respect to the conduct of the mandate and with respect to its decision making process,” he said in the ruling.

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“The petitioner was invited to and did participate fully in the proceedings before the Commissioner.”

B.C. government lawyers had also argued in court that Taser issued a training document several months after Braidwood's report that endorsed the inquiry's findings.

That document warned police officers to aim their stun guns away from the heart.

Taser said the training bulletin was only issued to protect the company from potential lawsuits and was not an admission the weapons are dangerous.

The bulletin warned of “a remote potential risk of cardiac effect.”

The province's lawyers suggested the document showed Taser already knew the weapons carry a small risk of death, but would rather keep that fact in the “fine print” of an obscure product warning rather than in the highly publicized findings of a public inquiry.

Taser's history of aggressively defending its weapons in court is well-documented.

Last year, the company sent out a news release boasting it had successfully won its 100th dismissal of a liability lawsuit.

The company is quick to contact media organizations about stories on deaths that may be linked to use of their weapons, and when a state medical examiner in Ohio ruled that three men's deaths were in part caused by the effects of Tasers, the company sued.

Taser eventually won, and in May 2008, a judge ordered the medical examiner to delete any references in the autopsy findings that suggested the stun guns were to blame.

Taser has said Braidwood's report hurt its business around the world and cost the company a multimillion-dollar contract in Africa earlier this year.

Braidwood's second report, examining Dziekanski's death in detail, was released in June.

That document chided the four RCMP officers involved in the man's death for using too much force and concluded the multiple Taser stuns likely played the greatest role in his death.

The RCMP publicly apologized to his mother and reached a confidential settlement that averted a civil case.

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