## Facts

- Trust Company Bank owned an office building in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.
- During construction, the contractor installed asbestos-containing fireproofing materials designed and manufactured by United States Gypsum Company.
- The building was completed in 1969.
- Trust later undertook a costly asbestos abatement program to remove or contain the asbestos-containing fireproofing.
- On June 30, 1989, Trust sued USG in Mississippi state court seeking recovery of abatement costs, alleging USG knowingly manufactured defective and unreasonably dangerous asbestos-containing products.
- USG removed the case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi and moved to dismiss, arguing the action was “local” to Georgia real property and, alternatively, time-barred.

## Issues

1. Whether the action was a “local” real-property claim tied to land in Georgia (and thus not properly heard in Mississippi) or a transitory products-liability/tort action.
2. Whether Mississippi’s construction-related statute of repose barred claims filed about 20 years after the building’s completion.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit held the district court had subject-matter jurisdiction because the complaint pleaded a transitory products-liability/tort claim against a manufacturer, not an in rem dispute over Georgia real property.
- The Fifth Circuit nonetheless affirmed dismissal because Mississippi’s construction statute of repose barred the action.
- The court treated the repose bar as absolute after the statutory period, not extendable by discovery-rule or continuing-tort theories.

## Legal Principles

- A claim seeking damages from allegedly defective building products sounds in tort/products liability and is generally transitory, not a local action limited to the situs of the affected real property.
- Mississippi’s construction statute of repose (Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-41, as applied) bars actions arising from construction-related improvements to real property after the repose period, measured from completion, regardless of when harm is discovered.
- When a judgment is correct on an alternative ground supported by the record, an appellate court may affirm even if it disagrees with part of the district court’s reasoning.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit rejected the local-action jurisdiction theory and treated the asbestos abatement claim as transitory, but affirmed dismissal because Mississippi’s construction statute of repose extinguished the claim long before suit was filed.


Trust Co. Bank v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 950 F.2d 1144 (5th Cir. 1992)