Beech Aircraft Corp. v. Superior Court

Beech Aircraft Corporation (hereinafter “Beech”) seeks a writ of mandate compelling the superior court to grant its motion for summary judgment in three consolidated cases wherein Beech sought orders declaring (1) New Mexico law “the applicable law in determining the rights and liabilities of the parties,” and (2) that under New Mexico law wrongful death damages “arising out of the death of a passenger on a public conveyance may only be recovered from the common carrier which owned the conveyance.”

Statement of the Case

The parties to the consolidated cases involved in this proceeding are Beech, the producer and manufacturer of a certain Beechcraft Queenair Aircraft; Adams-Rite Manufacturing Company (hereinafter “Adams-Rite”), the designer and manufacturer of a door latching mechanism used in the Queenair Aircraft; Ross Aviation, Inc. (hereinafter “Ross”), the owner and operator of the particular Queenair Aircraft, Katherine Marie Aanestad, the administratrix of the estate of Bruce Arthur Bean (hereinafter “Aanestad/Bean”), a passenger killed when the Beechcraft plane crashed, and Janet Eugenio Clark, the administratrix of the estate of Richard T. Zettel, the pilot of…