The Odenton Volunteer Fire Company wrongly rented out its social hall for an event in which two people were shot and a third was hit by a car while fleeing the violence, a lawyer for the injured partygoers said in opening remarks Tuesday to an Anne Arundel County jury.

Judd Legum asked jurors to hold the fire company liable for his clients' injuries.

But Senior Assistant County Attorney Hamilton Tyler said that it was not the fire company's fault that the party organizer lied on her application and that a disgruntled partygoer shot two people.

The lawsuit stems from a September 2005 party at the fire company's social hall - the organizer said it was an anniversary bash, but it really was a party with a $10 cover charge and cash bar. Delvin Eldridge of Baltimore and Sharda Smith of Pasadena were shot, and Erica Williams of Annapolis was hit by a car as she ran from the gunfire.

The injured contend in a $7 million lawsuit that the fire company and the county should be held liable along with convicted shooter Terrence C. Medley and party organizer Temika Young.

Medley and Young have been found liable in the case.

Legum said the county liquor board threatened to curb the license at the Odenton facility after other violence, including at an event in March 2005 in which Young applied under her maiden name to hold a party for a nonprofit that was really a for-profit party where a person was stabbed.

The fire company promised to rein in the parties, blackball anyone who lied on an application and have firefighters monitor the events, but that didn't happen, Legum said.

Tyler said the trial will show that Young lied on the application for the September 2005 party because she knew the fire company had changed its rental policy.

Medley, drunk and angry that he couldn't re-enter after smoking, got a gun from his car. After the shooting, he fled, crashing his car a mile away. The former Davidsonville resident, now 29, is serving an 18-year term.

The county's payouts in lawsuits are capped at $200,000. That does not apply to the fire company, which was covered by the county's self-insurance fund until July 1.

The lawsuit is one of two against the fire company that weighed in the county's decision to stop insuring volunteer companies for anything beyond fire and rescue operations. In the other, settled last year, two ex-volunteers alleged that a former fire company president sexually abused them.