Thornton v. Cessna Aircraft Co.

• Decision Date: 13 September 1988
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 3:87-3308-16,3:88-1322-16.
• Citation: 703 F. Supp. 1228
• Parties: Caffie D. THORNTON, as Executrix of the Estate of Emmett M. Lunceford, Jr., deceased, Plaintiff, v. CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina

703 F. Supp. 1228

Caffie D. THORNTON, as Executrix of the Estate of Emmett M. Lunceford, Jr., deceased, Plaintiff, v. CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY, Defendant.

Civ. A. Nos. 3:87-3308-16, 3:88-1322-16.

United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Columbia Division.

September 13, 1988.

T. English McCutchen, III, Columbia, S.C., Robert R. Smiley, III, Robert A. Mineo, Charleston, S.C., for plaintiff.

Richard B. Watson, Columbia, S.C., for defendant.

ORDER

HENDERSON, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on the defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings. For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants the motion as to the plaintiff's strict liability and negligence causes of action and denies the motion as to the plaintiff's breach of warranty causes of action.

The material facts are not in dispute. In 1984, the plaintiff's husband, a South Carolina resident, purchased an airplane in South Carolina from Jim Hamilton Aircraft, Inc. The airplane was manufactured by the defendant and first sold in 1972. On January 17, 1985, the plaintiff's husband was killed when the airplane crashed near Johnson, Tennessee. The plaintiff then brought a wrongful death action in South Carolina state court asserting three theories of recovery: negligence, strict liability and breach of warranty. The defendant later removed the action to this Court and, shortly thereafter, the plaintiff filed a survival action asserting the same three theories of recovery. The two actions have now been consolidated and the defendant has moved for judgment on the pleadings on the ground that the plaintiff's claims are barred under the applicable Tennessee statute of repose, Section 29-28-103(a), Tennessee Code Annotated. Alternatively, the defendant seeks a judgment in its favor on the survival action because Tennessee law does not authorize such an action. It is beyond dispute that, if Section 29-28-103(a) is controlling here, judgment should be granted in the defendant's favor.¹ Accordingly, because the Court holds the plaintiff's tort claims for negligence and strict liability are governed by Tennessee law, including Section 29-28-103, it grants the defendant's motion as it relates to these causes of action.² The Court declines, however, to grant the motion as it relates to the warranty causes of action because it finds these claims are governed by South Carolina law. The Court addresses the tort and warranty claims separately.

I.

First, the Court considers the defendant's motion as it relates to the plaintiff's claims for negligence and strict liability. Where, as here, federal jurisdiction is based on diversity of the parties, the Court is governed by the conflict of law rules of the state in which it sits. Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U.S. 612, 84 S.Ct. 805, 11 L.Ed.2d 945 (1964). South Carolina adheres to the traditional rule that when an action is brought in one jurisdiction for a tort causing injury in another, the substantive rights of the parties are governed by the lex loci delicti, the law of the state in which the injury occurred, while matters of procedure are governed by the lex fori. Mizell v. Eli Lilly & Co., 526 F.Supp. 589, 594-95 (D.S.C.1981); Gattis v. Chavez, 413 F.Supp. 33, 35 (1976); Algie v. Algie, 261 S.C. 103, 198 S.E.2d 529 (1973); Oshiek v. Oshiek, 244 S.C. 249, 136 S.E.2d 303 (1964); McDaniel v. McDaniel, 243 S.C. 286, 133 S.E.2d 809 (1963). Under this rule, because the crash causing the decedent's death occurred in Tennessee, the Court must apply the substantive law of Tennessee and the procedural law of South Carolina. Consequently, if the Tennessee statute of repose, Section 29-28-103(a), is a substantive rule of law, it is controlling as to the plaintiff's tort causes of action and defeats those claims as a matter of law.

A statute of limitations, which requires an action to be brought within a fixed time following accrual of a cause of action, is generally procedural because it affects the remedy rather than the right. See Merchant's Mutual Ins. Co. v. South Carolina Second Injury Fund, 277 S.C. 604, 608, 291 S.E.2d 667, 669 (1982); Hercules, Inc. v. South Carolina Tax Comm'n, 274 S.C. 137, 143, 262 S.E.2d 45, 48-49 (1980); Webb v. Greenwood County, 229 S.C. 267, 274-75, 92 S.E.2d 688, 694-95 (1956). A statute of repose such as Section 29-28-103(a), however, which requires that an action be brought within a fixed period from some date unrelated to the accrual of the action, such as the date of purchase or sale, is a substantive statute affecting the plaintiff's right. Goad v. Celotex Corp., 831 F.2d 508, 510-11 (4th Cir.1987); Wayne v. Tennessee Valley Auth., 730 F.2d 392, 400-02 (5th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1159, 105 S.Ct. 908, 83 L.Ed.2d 922 (1985); Anabaldi v. Sunbeam Corp., 651 F.Supp. 1343, 1345 (N.D. Ill.1987); Miers v. Central Mine Equipment Co., 604 F.Supp. 502, 504 (D.Neb. 1985); Pottratz v. Davis, 588 F.Supp. 949, 952-54 (D.Md.1984); Bolick v. American Barmag Corp., 306 N.C. 364, 293 S.E.2d 415 (1982). Consequently, the Court concludes that Section 29-28-103(a) is a substantive statute which governs the plaintiff's tort claims. The plaintiff, however, asserts that even if the Tennessee statute is controlling under the lex loci delicti rule, the Court should decline to apply it here because of an earlier state court order issued in this case.

Prior to removal, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on the same ground asserted here, that the plaintiff's claims are extinguished by the Tennessee statute of repose. The state court judge denied the motion on the grounds that (1) the statute of repose is procedural rather than substantive, (2) application of Tennessee law would violate the plaintiff's due process rights under the United States Constitution and (3) the statute is contrary to the public policy of South Carolina. The plaintiff argues the Court should accept the state judge's legal conclusions as the law of the case and, accordingly, rule that this action is governed by South Carolina law.

Whether rulings of one district judge become binding as "law of the case" upon subsequent district judges is not a matter of rigid legal rule, but more a matter of proper judicial administration which varies with the circumstances so that it may sometimes be proper for a district judge to treat earlier rulings as binding, sometimes not. Hill v. BASF Wyandotte Corp., 696 F.2d 287, 290 n. 3 (4th Cir.1982). Similarly, an interlocutory state court ruling prior to removal is subject to reconsideration by a federal court and, while to be treated with respect, is neither final nor conclusive. General Investment Co. v. Lake Shore & Mich. So. Ry. Co., 260 U.S. 261, 267, 43 S.Ct. 106, 110, 67 L.Ed. 244 (1922); 18 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 4478, at 798 & n. 29. Because the Court concludes the prior order here was legally erroneous, it declines to treat that order as the law of the case, holding instead that the plaintiff's tort claims are governed by Tennessee law, including Section 29-28-103(a). In reaching this determination, the Court considers separately each of the grounds on which the state judge relied to hold that the plaintiff's claims are governed by South Carolina law.

A.

First, the state judge ruled that the Tennessee statute of repose is procedural rather than substantive and therefore should not be applied under the South Carolina conflicts rules. As the Court has already found, however, the weight of authority is that such a statute requiring that an action be brought within a fixed period following purchase of goods is substantive because it affects the right rather than the remedy. Consequently, the Court disagrees with the state judge's conclusion in this regard.

B.

Second, the state judge held that application of the Tennessee statute would violate the plaintiff's right to due process under the United States Constitution because there were insufficient contacts between the state of Tennessee and the decedent. The Court disagrees and finds no constitutional defect in applying Tennessee law.

Although courts have rejected application of a specific state's law as violative of due process in isolated cases, none of those cases involved the lex loci delicti rule. See, e.g., John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Yates, 299 U.S. 178, 57 S.Ct. 129, 81 L.Ed. 106 (1936); Home Ins. Co. v. Dick, 281 U.S. 397, 50 S.Ct. 338, 74 L.Ed. 926 (1930). Rather, both federal and state courts have applied the lex loci delicti rule without hesitation. See, e.g., Anderson v. Lane, 97 F.Supp. 265 (D.S.C.1951); Algie v. Algie, 261 S.C. 103, 198 S.E.2d 529 (1973); Oshiek v. Oshiek, 244 S.C. 249, 136 S.E.2d 303 (1964). In fact, the United States Supreme Court has expressly held that a state court may constitutionally apply the law of the place of injury in a wrongful death action arising from an airplane crash. See Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 9, 82 S.Ct. 585, 591, 7 L.Ed.2d 492 (1962). Accordingly, the Court finds that applying Tennessee here does not violate the federal Constitution.

C.

Third, the state judge found the Tennessee statute should not be applied because it violates the public policy of South Carolina. The judge ruled that the statute by its very nature violates the state's public policy of providing access to courts to furnish a remedy for every wrong because it could, and in this case would, extinguish the right of a plaintiff before the right even accrued. In reaching this determination, the judge relied on "the well settled exception to lex loci delicti that the law of the forum and not the law of the place of the wrong controls whenever the law of the place of the wrong is contrary to the public policy of the forum state." Memorandum of Law in Support of Defendant's Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, Appendix A at 7.

In Rauton v. Pullman, 183 S.C. 495, 508-09, 191 S.E. 416, 422 (1937), the South Carolina Supreme Court...