Robert M. Cearley, Jr., as Personal Representative of the Estate of Mr. Vernon… v. Bobst Group North America Inc.

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 23-1101
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Robert M. Cearley, Jr., as Personal Representative of the Estate of Mr. Vernon
Leslie Holland, decedent, and on behalf of the Wrongful Death Beneficiaries,
lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant,
v.
Bobst Group North America Inc.,
lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellee.
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Central
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Submitted: September 24, 2024
Filed: February 21, 2025
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Before COLLOTON, Chief Judge, LOKEN and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
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COLLOTON, Chief Judge.
Vernon Holland was fatally injured by a piece of industrial equipment at the
factory where he worked. Robert Cearley, Jr., as personal representative of Holland’s
estate, brought a wrongful death suit against the company that delivered and installed
the piece of equipment, Bobst Group North America, Inc. (“Bobst NA”), seeking

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damages on several tort claims. The district court* granted summary judgment for
Bobst NA, ruling that Arkansas’s statute of repose on construction or design barred
Holland’s claim. Cearley appeals, and we affirm.
I.
Bryce Corporation operates a manufacturing plant in Searcy, Arkansas. The
company uses this facility to make flexible packaging, such as potato chip bags and
zip pouches. As part of the production process, the Searcy plant operates an eighty-
foot-long industrial lamination line with multiple machines.
The lamination line operates in the following manner. A roll of unlaminated
material is placed on a spindle. The material is then unwound and fed through a
series of machines that laminate the material. At the end of the lamination line,
another machine rewinds the laminated material into a new roll. This last machine
is a “rewinder.”
In March and April 2010, technicians from Bobst NA participated in the
delivery, installation, integration, and commissioning of a new rewinder on the
Searcy plant’s lamination line. An old rewinder was removed and replaced. Due to
its large size, the new rewinder was transported to the Searcy plant in sections and
assembled at the plant with the help of a forklift over ten days. The machine weighed
ten tons once assembled and was affixed to the floor of the Searcy plant with metal
ties. The rewinder’s electrical and air pressure systems were connected to the plant’s
systems.
*The Honorable Brian S. Miller, United States District Judge for the Eastern
District of Arkansas.
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The new machine was a Rotomec series 360 rewinder with select components
and features that were specified by Bryce Corporation. The rewinder was designed
and manufactured by an affiliate company, Bobst Italia, that is not a party to this
action. Installation was guided by a technical manual prepared by Bobst Italia for the
Rotomec 360 model. An employee of Bobst Italia was in charge of the
commissioning process for the new equipment.
Bryce Corporation employees kept maintenance logs for the rewinder. A Bryce
technician testified that “one of the main reasons” the company kept these logs was
to calculate whether it was time “to buy a new machine and replace that one.” The
rewinder was serviced twice in 2011, and was still in use as of 2022.
Holland worked at the Searcy plant as a laminator helper. In November 2016,
the material on the lamination line became miswound, and the production line was
stopped. Holland opened the rewinder and entered the machine to fix the issue.
According to the machine’s design plan, a worker could open the doors to enter
the rewinder only if the spindle motors were stopped. But when Holland entered the
rewinder, one of the two spindles was still turning. While pulling the miswound film
from the stopped spindle, Holland backed into the turning spindle. He was pulled
through the rewinder, incurred severe injuries, and later died in May 2017.
Cearley, on behalf of Holland’s estate, sued Bobst NA and alleged several
product liability claims. Bobst NA moved for summary judgment, arguing among
other things that Cearley’s claims were untimely and barred by an Arkansas statute
of repose. The district court granted the motion on that basis.
We review the district court’s judgment de novo. Summary judgment is
appropriate when the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
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party presents no genuine dispute of material fact and the moving party is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
II.
Arkansas Code § 16-56-112(b)(1) is a statute of repose for claims arising from
personal injury or wrongful death caused by alleged construction defects. “The effect
of the statute of repose ‘is to cut off entirely an injured person’s right of action before
it accrues, when that action does not arise until after the statutory period has
elapsed.’” Star City Sch. Dist. v. ACI Bldg. Sys., LLC, 844 F.3d 1011, 1017 (8th Cir.
2017) (quoting Curry v. Thornsberry, 128 S.W.3d 438, 447 (Ark. 2003)).
The statute provides:
No action in tort or contract, whether oral or written, sealed or unsealed,
to recover damages for personal injury or wrongful death caused by any
deficiency in the design, planning, supervision, or observation of
construction or the construction and repairing of any improvement to
real property shall be brought against any person performing or
furnishing the design, planning, supervision, or observation of
construction or the construction and repair of the improvement more
than four (4) years after substantial completion of the improvement.
Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-112(b)(1). The “legislative purpose” of § 16-56-112 “was
to enact a comprehensive statute of limitations protecting persons engaged in the
construction industry from being subject to litigation arising from work performed
many years prior to the initiation of the lawsuit.” Okla Homer Smith Furniture Mfg.
Co. v. Larson and Wear, Inc., 646 S.W.2d 696, 698 (Ark. 1983).
The parties dispute whether Bobst NA enjoys protection under the statute of
repose. We conclude that claims against Bobst NA arising from its work installing
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the rewinder are governed by the statute insofar as they involved an improvement to
real property. Bobst NA technicians participated in the delivery, installation,
integration, and commissioning of the rewinder on the Searcy plant’s lamination line.
The company was therefore involved in performing or furnishing the construction of
the rewinder. See 65th Ctr., Inc. v. Copeland, 825 S.W.2d 574, 580 (Ark. 1992)
(company that constructed a retaining wall under the observation of the firm that
designed the wall came within statute of repose); Carter v. Hartenstein, 455 S.W.2d
918, 920 (Ark. 1979) (company that manufactured and installed an elevator in a
government building was covered by statute).
Cearley argues that § 16-56-112 does not bar his claims because the statute
extends protection only to persons, like architects and contractors, whose work
involves “individual expertise not susceptible of the quality control standards of the
factory.” Cearley asserts that the rewinder is a “mass produced fungible good,” and
that Bobst NA did not perform “individualized design or construction work” that
required “individual expertise.” On that basis, Cearley contends that Bobst NA was
not a “person performing or furnishing the design, planning, supervision, or
observation of construction or the construction and repair” of an improvement to real
property. See Ark. Code. Ann. § 16-56-112(b)(1).
Cearley relies on Brown v. Overhead Door Corp., 843 F. Supp. 482 (W.D. Ark.
1994), where an automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and injured a child.
The district court in Brown concluded that the manufacturer of the door opener, a
mass-produced fungible good, could not invoke the statute of repose, especially
where the manufacturer was “not involved in the installation of the product and had
nothing to do with the design of the improvement within which [the product was]
installed.” Id. at 490. The court reasoned that other courts had declined to extend the
coverage of similar statutes to “suppliers or materialmen on the grounds that the
statute was designed to protect those actors supplying individual expertise under
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circumstances not susceptible of the quality control standards of the factory.” Id.; see
Norfolk & Dedham Fire Ins. Co. v. Rogers Mfg. Corp., 122 F.4th 312 (8th Cir. 2024).
Cearley’s argument concerning potential liability of manufacturers is
inapposite here, even if a rewinder could be deemed comparable to a garage door
opener. Bobst NA did not design or manufacture the rewinder; the machine was
manufactured by Bobst Italia. As explained, Bobst NA technicians participated in the
delivery, installation, integration, and commissioning of the rewinder on the Searcy
plant’s lamination line, so the statute applies to the company’s work.
Cearley also contends that the rewinder does not constitute an “improvement
to real property” under the statute. He maintains that the question for determination
is analogous to whether a chattel has become a fixture, and depends primarily on
whether the party intended to make the addition permanent. See Pledger v.
Halvorson, 921 S.W.2d 576, 578 (Ark. 1996).
The Arkansas Supreme Court, however, has declined to import the common-
law doctrine of fixtures into the statute of repose. Rather, the court has focused on
the purpose for which a piece of machinery was held or employed. In Cherokee
Carpet Mills, Inc. v. Manly Jail Works, Inc., 521 S.W.2d 528 (Ark. 1975), the court
ruled that a large water tank placed in a carpet manufacturing plant was an
improvement to real property because it “was interconnected with other parts of the
machinery and equipment” of the plant, and was ever since its installation “a part of
the machinery and equipment” of the plant. Id. at 530. In Carter, a company that
installed an elevator came within the scope of parties who made improvements to real
property. 455 S.W.2d at 920.
Cherokee Carpet Mills and Carter did not turn on whether the water tank and
elevator, respectively, were intended to be permanent fixtures. Those pieces of
equipment, like a rewinder, presumably have a useful life and at some point must be
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replaced. But where the machinery is affixed to the real property, furthers the
purpose of the realty, and is designed for long-term use in connection with the
property, the machinery is an improvement to real property for purposes of the statute
of repose.
We therefore conclude that Bobst NA’s work installing the rewinder at the
Searcy plant constituted the performance or furnishing of the construction of an
improvement to real property. Because this action was brought more than four years
after the installation of the rewinder, the claims are barred by the statute of repose.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
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