## Facts

- A July 24, 2005 aircraft crash in Oklahoma followed an engine failure and killed all three occupants.
- Wrongful-death and products-liability claims were filed in Alabama state court in 2007, alleging a defective crankshaft gear caused the accident.
- Defendants included the aircraft manufacturer, the engine manufacturer, the engine installer, the gear manufacturer (Precision Gear), and the gear’s heat treater (General Metal).
- All defendants settled the wrongful-death/products-liability litigation.
- In 2011, the installer (Tulsair) sued the engine manufacturer’s successor (Continental Motors) in Alabama, seeking statutory indemnity under Oklahoma law.
- Continental Motors filed third-party claims against Precision Gear and General Metal seeking indemnity or contribution, alleging their work failed to meet specifications and produced the defective gear.
- The parties agreed Oklahoma law governed the substantive indemnity rights, while Alabama law governed procedural matters, including statutes of limitation.

## Issues

1. Whether Alabama should apply its six-year limitations period for contract/implied-contract claims or its two-year limitations period for tort claims to Continental Motors’ noncontractual indemnity claims.
2. Whether Oklahoma’s characterization of indemnity as quasi-contractual controls the tort-versus-contract classification for selecting the applicable Alabama limitations period.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Alabama reversed the interlocutory order denying the gear manufacturers’ motion to dismiss and remanded.
- The court held Alabama’s two-year statute of limitations for tort actions applied to Continental Motors’ third-party indemnity claims.
- Applying Alabama’s two-year period, the court held Continental Motors’ claims were time-barred.

## Legal Principles

- In Alabama conflict-of-laws doctrine, statutes of limitation are generally procedural and governed by forum law unless a limitation is built into the foreign substantive right or a borrowing rule applies.
- When Alabama applies its own limitations statutes, Alabama law controls the classification of the claim (tort vs. contract) for limitations purposes, even if another state’s law governs substantive rights.
- Noncontractual indemnity claims tied to alleged negligence/products-liability conduct, absent an express indemnity agreement, are treated as tort claims for Alabama statute-of-limitations purposes.
- A foreign jurisdiction’s quasi-contract framing of indemnity defines substantive rights and elements but does not dictate Alabama’s procedural classification for choosing the Alabama limitations period.

## Conclusion

The Alabama Supreme Court held that, although Oklahoma law governed the substance of the asserted indemnity rights arising from an Oklahoma accident, Alabama law controlled how the claim was categorized for limitations purposes; because Alabama treats this type of noncontractual indemnity as a tort claim, the two-year tort statute of limitations applied and barred Continental Motors’ third-party claims.


Precision Gear Co. v. Continental Motors, Inc., 135 So. 3d 953 (Ala. 2013)