AI Generated Opinion Summaries

This summary was computer-generated without any editorial revision. It is not official, has not been checked for accuracy, and is NOT citable.

Facts

• In July 2010, the Plaintiffs purchased a home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that was designed by the Defendant a decade earlier. Prior to the purchase, an inspection revealed heaving and cracking in the garage area, attributed to soil expansion under the building. Despite remedial efforts by the builder in 2008, the Plaintiffs hired a structural engineering firm, which reported the house was in good structural condition. However, by mid-2011, new cracks appeared in the house, leading to the discovery that the home was built over clay/shale materials prone to swelling. The Plaintiffs sued the Defendant, alleging inadequate foundation design due to the property's varied elevations (paras 2-6).

Procedural History

• District Court of Santa Fe County, Francis J. Mathew, District Judge: Summary judgment was granted to Defendant, Wood Metal Concrete, LLC, based on the statute of repose limiting liability for construction projects to ten years after their substantial completion (para 1).

Parties' Submissions

• Plaintiffs: Argued that their claims were not time-barred under the due process rule announced in Terry v. New Mexico State Highway Commission, contending that the statute of repose should not apply due to the discovery of the property's defects within a close timeframe to the statute's expiration (para 1).
• Defendant: Argued that the statute of repose bars the present suit, as the liability for construction defects is limited to ten years from the substantial completion of the project, which occurred more than ten years before the Plaintiffs filed their lawsuit (paras 1, 7).

Legal Issues

• Whether the statute of repose limiting liability for construction projects to ten years after their substantial completion bars the Plaintiffs' suit.
• Whether the due process exception to the statute of repose applies, allowing the Plaintiffs' claims to proceed despite the expiration of the ten-year period (paras 7-9).

Disposition

• The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's order granting summary judgment in favor of the Defendant, Wood Metal Concrete, LLC (para 18).

Reasons

• Per LINDA M. VANZI, Judge (JONATHAN B. SUTIN, Judge, RODERICK T. KENNEDY, Judge concurring):
  The court held that the statute of repose, which limits liability to ten years from the substantial completion of a construction project, barred the Plaintiffs' suit. The court found that the Plaintiffs' claims were filed after the expiration of this period, which began when the certificate of occupancy was issued on November 21, 2001, and expired in November 2011 (paras 7, 9).
  The court rejected the Plaintiffs' argument under the due process exception, noting that the Plaintiffs had approximately sixteen months to file suit after discovering the property damage and its cause. This period was not deemed "unreasonably short" to pursue a remedy, and thus, the due process concerns under Terry were not implicated (paras 10-17).
  The court concluded that the Plaintiffs had sufficient knowledge of the damage and its potential cause by the end of July 2010, making the discovery rule inapplicable to extend the filing period beyond the statute of repose. The court emphasized that the statute of repose's purpose is to limit prospective liability and shift it to property owners and other tortfeasors after ten years (paras 11-17).