The Texas Supreme Court has scheduled oral argument in In re Bell Helicopter Services, Inc. and Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. (No. 24-0883) on December 3.
This case arose from a fatal accident involving a helicopter manufactured and sold by Bell in 1997. The accident occurred in 2017. Plaintiffs brought a wrongful death claim in a Galveston County court-at-law. Bell moved for no-evidence summary judgment on the basis of the 18-year statute of repose prescribed by the General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994 (GARA). The trial court denied the motion. Bell filed a mandamus petition with the Houston [14th] Court of Appeals, which denied it. Bell sought mandamus relief from SCOTX. The question before the Court is whether GARA’s statute of repose “restarted when Bell made revisions to some parts of its flight manual or when it continued to omit a warning from the flight manual.”
