TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Katharine Heriges on Nov 28, 2017

The Tennessee Supreme Court addressed a certified question from a federal district court on an aircraft maintenance company’s effort to collect a bill for work done on a commercial airplane. Nashville-based Embraer Aircraft Services performed maintenance work on a plane leased by Colgan Air but owned by AeroCentury Corporation. Embraer acquired a repairman’s lein on a the plane itself in case of nonpayment. Colgan never paid after the work was completed, and later went bankrupt. Embraer then filed a lawsuit against AeroCentury in effort to collect the money owed. The federal district court handling the case asked the Tennessee Supreme Court whether a repairman’s lien under the statute can be enforced by a method other than allowing the creditor to take possession of the property and sell it to pay the debt. The Supreme Court held that it only allows creditors to enforce a repairman’s lien by sale of the lien-subject property, which in this case, is the airplane.