Bowman v. Niagara Mach. and Tool Works, Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 November 1987
• Docket Number: No. 87-1523,87-1523
• Parties: , Prod.Liab.Rep.(CCH)P 11,582 Rodney BOWMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NIAGARA MACHINE AND TOOL WORKS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1052

832 F.2d 1052

56 USLW 2302, Prod.Liab.Rep.(CCH)P 11,582

Rodney BOWMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NIAGARA MACHINE AND TOOL WORKS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 87-1523.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 22, 1987.

Decided Nov. 3, 1987.

As Amended Nov. 5, 1987.

Richard D. Schrieber, Schrieber & Sevenish, Indianapolis, Ind., for plaintiff-appellant.

James J. Shea, Hunt, Suedhoff, Borror & Eilbacher, Fort Wayne, Ind., for defendant-appellee.

Before WOOD, FLAUM and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

HARLINGTON WOOD, Jr., Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Rodney Bowman appeals from the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissing his product liability action against defendant Niagara Machine and Tool Works, Inc. ("Niagara"), 620 F.Supp. 1484. In dismissing the action the district court relied on Indiana's statute of repose applicable to product liability actions, Ind.Code Sec. 33-1-1.5-5, which requires that such actions be filed within 10 years of the delivery of the product to its initial user or consumer. Bowman challenges the validity of Ind.Code. Sec. 33-1-1.5-5, claiming that it violates the Commerce and Equal Protection clauses of the United States Constitution. We affirm.

I.

The material facts surrounding Bowman's injury are not in dispute. At the time of the injury Bowman was employed by I.T.T. Thompson Industries at its plant in North Vernon, Indiana. On May 20, 1982, while operating a sheet metal press at the plant, Bowman suffered injuries to his right hand. ¹ The press was manufactured by Niagara and shipped to its initial purchaser, the Marietta Aircraft Assembly Plant, in 1943; Niagara has not performed any maintenance or service or had any other contact with the press since that time.

Bowman initially filed this action in an Indiana state trial court, but the case was removed to federal court by Niagara based on diversity of citizenship of the parties. On motion of Niagara, the district court granted summary judgment and dismissed the action on grounds that Bowman's complaint was filed more than 10 years after the press was delivered to its first user. (In fact, it was filed more than 40 years thereafter.) The district court relied on Ind.Code Sec. 33-1-1.5-5, which provides, in pertinent part, that:

... any product liability action in which the theory of liability is negligence or strict liability in tort must be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrues or within ten years after the delivery of the product to the initial user or consumer....

Despite the use of the disjunctive "or" in the quoted passage, the Supreme Court of Indiana has interpreted Sec. 33-1-1.5-5 to require that a product liability action be filed "within two years after [the action] accrues, but in any event within ten years after the product is first delivered to the initial user or consumer ...," Dague v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 275 Ind. 520, 418 N.E.2d 207, 210 (1981) (on certification from this court). Bowman does not contest this interpretation of Sec. 33-1-1.5-5 or the district court's holding that it bars his action. Rather, Bowman's arguments are directed to the validity of the statute itself.

II.

Bowman argues that Ind.Code Sec. 33-1-1.5-5 violates his right to equal protection of the laws, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, because it creates two classes of potential product liability plaintiffs--those who discover their injury and file an action within ten years of initial product delivery and those who discover their injury after the ten year period has elapsed. As Bowman concedes, this court has already held that the ten-year repose provision of Sec. 33-1-1.5-5 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause because it is rationally related to a legitimate state interest, i.e. the protection of manufacturers from certain losses due to defects in products placed in the stream of commerce. See Braswell v. Flintkote Mines, Ltd., 723 F.2d 527, 531 (7th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1231, 104 S.Ct. 2690, 81 L.Ed.2d 884 (1984); Pitts v. Unarco Industries, Inc., 712 F.2d 276, 280 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1003, 104 S.Ct. 509, 78 L.Ed.2d 698 (1983). According to Bowman, however, Braswell and Pitts are inapplicable to his case because they applied a "rational basis" test in connecting the effect of the repose provision with the state interests it advanced. Bowman claims that we must strictly scrutinize the relationship between the statute and the asserted state interests because Sec. 33-1-1.5-5, by requiring the dismissal of his lawsuit, has denied him access to the courts in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. He argues that his right of access to courts is "fundamental," and that any legal distinction that deprives him of a "fundamental" right must be the subject of strict judicial scrutiny and may only be upheld if it furthers a "compelling" state interest.

As a general matter, legislative classifications alleged to violate the Equal Protection Clause will be sustained if they are rationally related to a legitimate state interest. City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 440, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985); Griffin High School v. Illinois High School Ass'n, 822 F.2d 671, 674 (7th Cir.1987). However, the Supreme Court has directed the application of a "heightened" level of scrutiny in cases where the challenged classification burdens a "suspect class" or where (as Bowman argues is the case here) the classification infringes upon a "fundamental" right. Attorney General of New York v. Soto-Lopez, 476 U.S. 898, ----, 106 S.Ct. 2317, 2322 n. 6, 90 L.Ed.2d 899 (1986); San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 16 n. 39, 29, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 1287 n. 39, 1294, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973). When a challenged legal classification is subjected to strict scrutiny, it may only be sustained if the state interest that it advances is a compelling one.

Bowman argues that the classification created by Ind.Code Sec. 33-1-1.5-5 resulted in the dismissal of his product liability claims against Niagara, thereby denying him access to court to obtain compensation for his injury, and that the state has no compelling interest in thus extinguishing his claim. ² We need not quarrel with Bowman's assertion that the right of access to courts constitutes a "fundamental" right which would, if infringed, demand as justification a compelling state interest. We conclude that Bowman has not in fact been denied access to courts in the constitutional sense.

Bowman cannot claim that he has been denied access to court simply because the Indiana legislature has restricted a particular cause of action in a way that makes it unavailable to him. Such an approach confuses "access" with "success," and Bowman is not constitutionally entitled to the latter. The concept of constitutionally protected access to courts revolves around whether an individual is able to make use of the courts' processes to vindicate such rights as he may have, as opposed to the exent to which rights actually are extended to protect or compensate him. Claims of violation of the right of access to courts have thus focused on the availability of suitable court processes to vindicate existing rights or, more commonly, the ability of an individual to make use of those processes. See, e.g., Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977) (requiring prison authorities to provide inmates with adequate law libraries or legal assistance in order to permit meaningful litigation of appeals from convictions or other constitutional claims); Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F.2d 1205, 1262-63 (7th Cir.1984) (conspiracy by local officials to conceal information that could have formed the basis for a claim under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983). In contrast, Bowman's claim concerns specific substantive rights that the legislature has declined to extend to a group of persons that includes him. Bowman has not alleged that he has been denied access to either state or federal courts to enforce any right that has accrued to him.

Because the judicial process is open to him, even if the cause of action he would pursue is not, we conclude that Bowman has failed to present a claim of denial of access to courts by operation of Ind.Code Sec. 33-1-1.5-5, and therefore that the statute need only be examined under the "rational basis" test. Adhering to this court's prior holdings in Braswell and Pitts, we find that the ten-year repose provision is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Accordingly, we reject Bowman's challenge to the statute under the Equal Protection Clause.

III.

Bowman brings his second, and more novel, challenge to Ind.Code Sec. 33-1-1.5-5 under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8, Clause 3, which empowers Congress "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes...." Bowman's Commerce Clause argument is a sweeping one; he contends no less than that any state regulation of product liability unconstitutionally impedes the flow of interstate commerce by subjecting product manufacturers to inconsistent regulation from state to state. In support of this claim Bowman submitted the affidavit of an economics professor, Dr. Robert Sandy, who concluded that Sec. 33-1-1.5-5 affects interstate commerce by creating financial benefits for product manufacturers that are disproportionately located outside Indiana. Bowman also presented to the district court testimony given at Congressional committee hearings in support of proposed federal legislation that would create uniform product liability standards throughout the nation.

It is now beyond question that the Commerce Clause prevents the states from impeding the...