## Facts

- A minor was injured in Oregon in 1990 when a small-caliber, single-action revolver accidentally discharged.
- The revolver was designed and manufactured in Connecticut, shipped to an Oregon distributor in 1968, and purchased at retail in Oregon the same year.
- The plaintiff filed a products-liability action in federal court in Connecticut in 1991 against the manufacturer, asserting strict liability, negligence, and punitive damages.
- Oregon law required filing within two years of injury and no more than eight years after purchase; Connecticut law required filing within three years of injury and imposed a separate outside limit tied to loss of possession.
- Applying Oregon’s eight-year repose period would bar the claim; applying Connecticut’s limitations regime would not.

## Issues

1. Under Connecticut choice-of-law rules, is a foreign product-liability statute of repose characterized as substantive (and applied) or procedural (and displaced by forum limitations law)?
2. Does the characterization depend on whether the underlying cause of action existed at common law in the foreign state?

## Decision

- The Connecticut Supreme Court answered the certified question by holding that the Oregon statute of repose is procedural for Connecticut choice-of-law purposes in this setting.
- The court treated statutes of repose as indistinguishable from statutes of limitation for characterization purposes.
- Because product-liability causes of action existed at common law in Oregon, the Oregon repose provision was viewed as regulating the remedy, not defining the right.
- As a procedural rule, the Oregon repose period did not bar the action in the Connecticut forum; Connecticut’s limitations statute controlled.

## Legal Principles

- In Connecticut conflicts analysis, statutes of limitation are generally procedural and governed by forum law unless the time limit is so interwoven with the cause of action that it qualifies the right itself.
- For choice-of-law characterization, Connecticut does not treat a statute labeled “repose” as categorically substantive; it applies the same framework used for limitation statutes.
- A foreign time bar is procedural when it functions as a limitation on the remedy for a preexisting common-law cause of action, rather than as a condition on a legislatively created right.

## Conclusion

Connecticut characterizes a foreign product-liability statute of repose as procedural, and therefore applies forum limitations law, when the underlying claim existed at common law in the foreign jurisdiction; under that approach, the Oregon repose period did not time-bar the plaintiff’s action in the Connecticut forum.


Baxter v. Sturm, Ruger & Co., 230 Conn. 335, 644 A.2d 1297 (1994)