Blue Sky Telluride v. Intercontinental Jet Service (2014)
The court reversed summary judgment for an aircraft lender and remanded unresolved repair-authorization/ownership issues. It did not finally award the repairer a lien or order a foreclosure sale. Decided January 21, 2014, corrected February 28; mandate April 29. Full opinion retrieved in the Oklahoma Bar Journal, May 24, 2014, preserved by the official state library.
Facts and procedure
Blue Sky delivered a Mitsubishi MU-2 to IJS in December 2008, allegedly for inspection only. IJS claimed authorized repairs, retained possession, filed an FAA lien March 23, 2009, and counterclaimed for foreclosure May 10, 2010. Blue Sky sued in replevin; IJS impleaded Harley Davidson, successor to the financing lender, claiming priority. The trial court granted lender summary judgment; IJS sought reconsideration/new trial and appealed. During litigation the court approved an arm’s-length USD 525,000 sale; the parties released aircraft liens onto proceeds, USD 125,000 went to the lender and USD 400,000 remained escrowed. The owner’s claims against IJS remained unresolved; § 994(A) certification made the lender judgment appealable. New-trial review depended on de novo review of the underlying summary judgment. Opinion ¶¶ 1–9.
Holdings and reasoning
Federal recording requirements governed aircraft-lien perfection, with state law governing underlying validity: possession alone was insufficient perfection. The court required FAA filing, distinguishing decisions from jurisdictions whose law/federal filing eligibility differed. It rejected the lender’s use of § 91’s Oklahoma-certificate-of-title category: this aircraft possessed no such title, so the then § 91A governed. Opinion ¶¶ 9–17.
The court explained that artisan retention was common-law-derived, reiterated and later regulated/extended by §§ 91/91A; invoking common law did not avoid applicable statutory enforcement rules. Sections 92–96 and 97–100 belonged to different grants; their eight-/twelve-month periods did not supply a universal limitation on § 91A. Section 23 tied the lien’s life to the principal obligation’s limitation: three years for oral or five for written contract. FAA filing perfected but did not create a new accrual date. The May 2010 counterclaim was timely even using December 2008 as earliest accrual. Opinion ¶¶ 13–24.
Then § 91A lacked a contrary priority term, so a valid lien would take priority under UCC § 1-9-333. But owner consent and whether the requesting person had owner authority remained disputed. Unauthorized repairs would create no payment obligation/lien. Summary judgment was reversed and remanded, Bell and Goree concurring. Conditional priority is not final factual entitlement for IJS. Opinion ¶¶ 25–27 and footnotes.
Treatment and current use
Current § 91A(A)(2)(b) expressly subordinates the lien absent compliance, except the limited Class AA towing charge. The old categorical priority depended on 2011 text; its distinction among independent lien grants still matters for enforcement deadlines. The full post-2014 statute and current § 1-9-333 were retrieved. No subsequent appellate overruling was established by targeted exact-name/treatment searches; this bounded result is not a still-good-law certificate. Current Title 42; Title 12A.
Applies in oklahoma, aircraft, aircraft-title-liens-and-the-faa-registry and aircraft-mechanics-liens-and-non-judicial-sales.
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify current statutes, aircraft records and subsequent treatment before relying on this decision.