Deborah Jenkins et. al. v. Southland Capital Corporation, Southland Equity Corporation, Terry Lynch and Bradford Farms LLC

This is a consolidated wrongful death and personal injury case. In May 2002, three young boys walking beside the road were struck by a drunken driver in a residential subdivision. Two were killed, the third severely injured. The plaintiffs sued the developers of the subdivision, arguing that the absence of sidewalks in the area where the boys were walking was a cause of the accident. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the developers on grounds that the plaintiffs’ lawsuit was time-barred under the four-year statute of repose for improvements to real property, T.C.A. § 28-3-202. We agree with the trial court that the improvements to the real property on which the accident occurred were substantially completed more than four years prior to the filing of the lawsuits under the statutory definition at T.C.A. § 28-3-201(2), and therefore affirm.