Pass took his single-engine Piper airplane to Shelby Aviation for inspection and service. The bulk of Shelby Aviation's business was service-oriented. The invoice prepared by Shelby Aviation refers to the plane being brought in for "repair" and "100 hour inspection." In servicing the plane, Shelby Aviation replaced both rear wing attach point brackets.
If the cost of labor is not considered part of the cost of the materials, the percentage of the invoice attributable to materials was 37 percent. Subsequently, Pass and his wife left Plant City, Florida, in the plane, bound for Clarksville, Tennessee. Somewhere over Alabama, the couple flew into turbulence. Pass lost control of the plane and it crashed to the ground in Alabama, killing the Passes. The Passes' estates filed a breach of warranty action under the Uniform Commercial Code against Shelby Aviation. They claimed that the rear wing attach point brackets that had been sold and installed by Shelby Aviation were defective because they lacked the bolts necessary to secure them to the plane. According to their complaint, Shelby Aviation employees failed to provide and install the bolts and the missing bolts resulted in a failure of both wings of the plane to withstand the torque applied to an aircraft during turbulence, leading to Pass's loss of control of the plane and ultimately causing the crash. Shelby Aviation filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that its contract with Pass had been primarily for the sale of services, rather than goods, so that the transaction was not covered by Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Was Shelby Aviation correct?