Opinion ID: 76505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: general matters

Text: 5 Before we start addressing the individual claims and related defenses, it will be helpful to get a few general matters out of the way. The first is the standard of review, which is well settled. We review de novo the district court's grant of a motion to dismiss under [Rule] 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, accepting the allegations in the complaint as true and construing them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Hill, 321 F.3d at 1335. The standard of review for a motion to dismiss is the same for the appellate court as it was for the trial court. Stephens v. Dep't of Health & Human Servs., 901 F.2d 1571, 1573 (11th Cir.1990). A motion to dismiss is granted only when the movant demonstrates beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief. Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957); see also Flint v. ABB, Inc., 337 F.3d 1326, 1328-29 (11th Cir.2003). 6 Another general matter involves the decision of state law issues. With the exception of the federal law preemption questions, the issues in this case all involve matters of state law. In rendering a decision based on state substantive law, [we] must decide the case the way it appears the state's highest court would. Ernie Haire Ford, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 260 F.3d 1285, 1290 (11th Cir.2001) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 7 Because the resolution of the state law issues could have avoided the need to decide the federal law preemption questions in this case, we thought it a good idea to certify the former to the Alabama Supreme Court before deciding the latter. See Spain, 230 F.3d at 1305. Now that we have the Alabama Supreme Court's answers to some of the state law issues, it is apparent that federal preemption questions must be decided. After having worked through the remaining questions a number of ways, we believe that the clearest way to explain the results we reach is to begin our analysis with the three defenses that potentially cut across all of Spain's claims, including the federal one, and then deal with each individual claim in turn. We will address the three broad defenses in this order: the statutes of limitation, the rule of repose, and federal law preemption.