Beasley v. Fairchild Hiller Corporation

• Decision Date: 11 December 1968
• Docket Number: No. 25532.,25532.
• Citation: 401 F.2d 593
• Parties: James W. BEASLEY, Appellant, v. FAIRCHILD HILLER CORPORATION, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

401 F.2d 593 (1968)

James W. BEASLEY, Appellant, v. FAIRCHILD HILLER CORPORATION, Appellee.

No. 25532.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

October 7, 1968.

Rehearing Denied December 11, 1968.

James A. Dixon, Jr., Dixon, DeJarnette, Bradford, Williams, McKay & Kimbrell, Miami, Fla., for appellant.

Samuel A. Brodnax, Jr., Kermit G. Kindred, Batchelor, Brodnax, Guthrie & Kindred, Miami, Fla., for appellee.

Before TUTTLE, COLEMAN, and MORGAN, Circuit Judges.

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge:

The sole issue in this appeal is whether the cause of action asserted against the appellee was timely filed. The District Court held that it was not. We affirm.

The action was filed in a Florida Circuit Court on July 20, 1966. Pursuant to an order for a more Definite Statement an amended complaint was filed September 23, 1966. The amended complaint was in two counts, the first sounding in negligence and the second on breach of implied warranty. In addition to a general denial of the material allegations of the amended complaint and the assertion of the affirmative defense of contributory negligence, the defendant pleaded the statute of limitations. The case was then removed to the Federal District Court upon diversity of citizenship. Subsequently, after depositions, summary judgment was granted the defendant because plaintiff's cause of action was barred by limitations. This appeal followed.

The controlling facts, which are undisputed, were that the appellee, Fairchild Hiller Corporation, is a California corporation engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling aircraft. On or about September 27, 1960, it manufactured and sold to a resident of Miami, Florida, a certain helicopter. The helicopter was delivered in California and from that point on Fairchild had nothing further to do with it. It was continuously owned, berthed, worked, serviced, and maintained in Florida.

Several months prior to April 30, 1964, the owner of the helicopter negotiated its sale to a California corporation. It was agreed that the aircraft would be delivered to the purchaser in Dallas, Texas, upon completion of necessary maintenance and repairs. The appellant was a qualified helicopter pilot of some twenty-five years experience and was the general manager of the company owning the helicopter. On April 29, 1964, he set out for Dallas with the aircraft. The flight proceeded without incident across Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. Beasley was in the act of making a fueling stop at Tallulah, Louisiana, when the helicopter crashed, resulting in serious personal injury to the pilot. The crash occurred April 30, 1964.

As noted, suit was not filed until July 20, 1966. It alleged defect in the design of the fuel system of the aircraft. The plaintiff averred that it was not until the first week of August, 1965, that he became aware of facts raising the possibility that there might have been negligence or breach of warranty on the part of Fairchild Hiller. In April, 1965, a helicopter similar to the one in which Beasley was injured crashed in Miami. He asked his attorney to look into the matter and in August, 1965, a copy of the Civil Aeronautics Board report on that crash was received. Appellant says that upon the information contained in that report he was able, for the first time, to determine that a defective condition existed with respect to the helicopter in which he had crashed and, for the first time, he had reason to believe that he had a cause of action against the appellee.

Under Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188, 114 A.L.R. 1487 (1938) it is axiomatic that the Federal District Court in this diversity case was sitting as another court of the State of Florida, controlled by Florida law.

As was the District Court, we are confronted, at the outset, with § 95.10, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., which reads as follows:

"When the cause of action has arisen in another state or territory of the United States, or in a foreign country, and by the laws thereof an action thereon cannot be maintained against a person by reason of the lapse of time, no action thereon shall be maintained against him in this state."

It is of considerable significance that although this statute has been on the books for almost a hundred years, since 1872, the appellate courts of Florida have been called upon to refer to it only three times, as indicated by the annotations to the Florida Statutes and one subsequent decision. We are convinced that the clarity of its language and the certainty of its command simply left no room for litigation. In Brown v. Case, 80 Fla. 703, 86 So. 684 (1920) the Supreme Court of Florida said, and there has been no subsequent modification, "It is clear that the Legislature by this statute intended to give a debtor against whom a cause of action accrued in another state or territory, or in a foreign country, the benefit of statutes of limitations of those jurisdictions if they were shorter than that of this state". We cannot, therefore, agree with the suggestion of appellant that the ancient case of Perry v. Lewis, 6 Fla. 555 (1856), stands for the proposition that this statute applies only to limitations which "extinguish the right" and not to those which merely "bar the remedy". It is sufficient to point out that Florida Statutes § 95.10 was enacted sixteen years after Perry was decided and it does not make the distinction outlined in the Perry case. The test, as Brown v. Case, supra, states it, is: Whether or not an action arising in a particular jurisdiction could have been maintained there at the time suit was commenced in Florida. See also Lescard v. Keel, 2 D.A., Fla., 211 So.2d 868 (1968).

We must next recognize that Florida follows the doctrine of lex loci delicti, the law of the place where the tortious act occurred, Hopkins v. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, 201 So.2d 743, 749 (1967), and Lescard v. Keel, supra.

We are thus remanded to a consideration of whether on July 20, 1966, more than two years after the crash, appellant on either negligence or implied warranty, could have maintained this suit in the Courts of...