Alves v. Siegel's Broadway Auto Parts, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 March 1989
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 87-533-H.
• Citation: 710 F. Supp. 864
• Parties: Betty ALVES, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SIEGEL'S BROADWAY AUTO PARTS, INC., Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff, v. LEACH COMPANY, INC., Third-Party Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

710 F. Supp. 864

Betty ALVES, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SIEGEL'S BROADWAY AUTO PARTS, INC., Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff, v. LEACH COMPANY, INC., Third-Party Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 87-533-H.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

March 28, 1989.

Edward Kelley and Robert J. Hoffer, Barron & Stadfeld, Boston, Mass., for Betty Alves, et al.

George E. Wakeman, Jr., Melick & Porter, Boston, Mass., for Leach Co., Inc.

John D. Cassidy, Ficksman & Conley, Boston, Mass., for Siegel's Broadway Auto Parts, Inc.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

HARRINGTON, District Judge.

This case presents a choice of law question regarding a state statute of repose. The issue is before the Court on the motion of third-party defendant Leach Company, Inc. ("Leach") for summary judgment. Jurisdiction is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1332.

I. BACKGROUND

The facts giving rise to this lawsuit are relatively simple. Plaintiffs sue as administratrices of decedent's estate, alleging in a three-count complaint that decedent was crushed to death during the course of his employment by the compacting unit on a trash collecting truck. Plaintiffs contend that defendant, Siegel's Broadway Auto Parts, Inc. ("Siegel"), from whom decedent's employer purchased the truck, is liable in negligence, breach of warranty, and strict liability. Third-party defendant Leach, the manufacturer of the truck's compacting mechanism, is alleged to be liable under theories of contribution and indemnification for any liability which might be assessed against Siegel.

II. PROCEDURE

The parties have arrived in this Court by a rather circuitous route. Plaintiffs originally proceeded directly against Leach in a suit filed in Connecticut Superior Court on June 21, 1985, nearly two years after decedent's death. Defendant Siegel was not named in that complaint. Leach filed a motion for summary judgment in the Connecticut action on March 24, 1986, arguing that a Connecticut statute of repose precluded plaintiffs' recovery. The instant action was filed by plaintiffs in Massachusetts Superior Court on July 17, 1986, naming only Siegel as a defendant. Siegel impleaded the third party Leach on January 29, 1987, and Leach removed the case to this Court on March 4, 1987. Summary judgment was granted in Leach's favor in the Connecticut action two weeks later, and Leach now moves for summary judgment in this Court on essentially the same ground.

III. THE ISSUE

The facts giving rise to this diversity action revolve around two states, and thus the applicable law could possibly emanate from one or more of three jurisdictions: (1) Connecticut, the state (i) where the plaintiffs are domiciled, (ii) where the plaintiffs' decedent was domiciled, (iii) where decedent's employer, the purchaser of the trash collecting truck, was domiciled, and (iv) where the injury occurred; (2) Massachusetts, the state (i) of defendant Siegel's incorporation and principal place of business, (ii) from which the compacting unit was ordered and to which it was delivered by Leach, (iii) in which the sale of the trash truck from Siegel to the decedent's employer took place, and (iv) in which this federal court is exercising its diversity of citizenship jurisdiction; and (3) the United States, which is providing the forum for this action.

The movant Leach supports its claim of non-liability with the following language of the Connecticut statute:

no product liability claim ... may be brought against any party nor may any party be impleaded ... later than ten years from the date that the party last parted with possession or control of the product.

Conn.Gen.Stat. § 52-577a(a) (emphasis supplied). It is undisputed that, if applicable, this law would preclude liability of Leach. It is also undisputed that no other involved jurisdiction has such a law. The issue, then, is whether a federal court, exercising diversity of citizenship jurisdiction in the District of Massachusetts, should apply the Connecticut statute of repose to deny a third-party claim of contribution and indemnification in this products liability action.

IV. DISCUSSION

A federal court sitting in diversity jurisdiction applies the substantive law of the forum state, Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938), including its choice of law rules. Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Elec. Mfg., 313 U.S. 487, 496, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 1021, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941). Statutes of repose are, under federal law, substantive in nature. See Arrieta-Gimenez v. Arrieta-Negron, 859 F.2d 1033, 1036 (1st Cir.1988). Accordingly, this Court looks toward Massachusetts law.

Since the analysis of Massachusetts law may involve a choice of law, this Court first seeks to determine whether there is a legislative directive, or "borrowing statute," as to what sovereign should supply the law. See Vaughn v. J.C. Penney Co., 822 F.2d 605, 611 (6th Cir.1987); see also Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (hereinafter "Second Restatement") § 6(1) (1969) ("A court ... will follow a statutory directive of its own state on choice of law"). Leach argues, quite correctly, that Mass.Gen.L. ch. 260, § 9 is just such a borrowing statute. Leach is incorrect, however, in its assertion that the borrowing statute applies in this case. The statute provides that "no action shall be brought by any person upon a cause of action which was barred by the laws of any state or country while he resided therein." Mass.Gen.L. ch. 260, § 9. The claims put in issue by this motion are not the primary, first-party claims of the Connecticut plaintiffs, but rather the third-party derivative claims of Siegel, the Massachusetts defendant. Since the statute of repose is a Connecticut law, and Siegel is a Massachusetts resident, Siegel's claims are not barred by the laws of its state, and the borrowing statute does not by its terms apply.¹

Having determined that there is no applicable legislative directive, the Court must now look to the forum state's choice of law method. This analysis requires the Court to retrace a step, this time under the guidance of state law. In other words, the Court must determine whether, under state law, the issue is to be regarded as substantive or procedural. If the forum state views the issue as procedural, this Court applies the law of the forum and declines to apply the Connecticut statute. See Sampson v. Channell, 110 F.2d 754, 759 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 310 U.S. 650, 60 S.Ct. 1099, 84 L.Ed. 1415 (1940). If, however, Massachusetts views the issue as substantive, this Court declines to apply the lex fori automatically, and instead looks toward the forum state's choice of law rules to determine which state's law should control. Id.²

No Massachusetts court has considered the question of whether, under its choice of law rules, a statute of repose is substantive or procedural. Statutes of repose are somewhat analogous to statutes of limitation, however, and it is clear that Massachusetts views statutes of limitation as procedural. Accordingly, Massachusetts courts decline to bar actions by application of another state's statute of limitation even if the other state is supplying the substantive law as to the cause of action being sued upon. See Wilcox v. Riverside Park, 21 Mass.App.Ct. 419, 421, 487 N.E.2d 860, 861 (1986) ("Massachusetts views statutes of limitation as relating to the remedy, and it applies its own law as the law of the forum"), rev'd. on other grounds, 399 Mass. 533, 505 N.E.2d 526 (1987); Clark v. Pierce, 215 Mass. 552, 553, 102 N.E. 1094 (1913); Hemric v. Reed and Prince Mfg., 739 F.2d 1, 2-3 (1st Cir.1984) ("We are aware of no case suggesting that Massachusetts would abandon the traditional rule that the local law of the forum determines whether an action is barred by a statute of limitations"); Wilson v. Hammer Holdings, Inc., 671 F.Supp. 94, 96 (D.Mass.1987) ("While Massachusetts has adopted modern choice of law analysis for substantive contract law issues, statutes of limitation are considered procedural rather than substantive"), aff'd 850 F.2d 3 (1st Cir.1988). Massachusetts is not unique for maintaining this view. See, e.g., Second Restatement § 142(2) ("An action will be maintained if it is not barred by the statute of limitations of the forum, even though it would be barred by the statute of limitations of another state") and cases cited therein at the reporter's note. Most adherents to this view make an exception, however, when the asserted statute of limitation is so specific to the right being sued upon that it can be viewed as a condition of the right's creation and a part of the right itself. In such instances, the right-specific statute of limitation is viewed as substantive; the forum state accordingly declines to apply its own statute as a matter of procedure, but rather applies the statute of the state supplying the substantive law. See, e.g., Second Restatement § 143 ("An action will not be entertained in another state if it is barred in the state of the otherwise applicable law by a statute of limitations which bars the right and not merely the remedy") and cases cited therein at the reporter's note.

This distinction is not immediately dispositive of the issue before the Court, for two reasons. First, Massachusetts has not explicitly recognized an exception to its longstanding (and recently reaffirmed, see Wilcox v. Riverside Park Enter., supra) rule that statutes of limitation are procedural, and its choice of law decisions reveal no inclination toward recognizing such an exception. In Rose v. Town of Harwich, however, the First Circuit recognized the distinction while discussing the preclusive effect, under Massachusetts law, of a statute of limitation-based dismissal on subsequent litigation;

A typical statute of limitations might, for example, extinguish the plaintiff's "remedy" in State A, but would not in itself necessarily stop him from enforcing his substantive "right" in State B, which may apply a different

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