DALLAS – The Supreme Court of Texas has denied an appeal by the Lycoming airplane-engine division of Providence-based Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT), letting stand a decision last fall by a Texas appeals court that was heralded as a victory by both sides.

The Lycoming appeal was listed among several dozen petitions for review that the high court denied without comment, refusing to hear those appeals, in orders pronounced on Aug. 29.

But a Textron spokeswoman today indicated that the ruling will not end the Lycoming division’s six-year battle with Navasota, Texas-based parts-maker Interstate Southwest Ltd.

Their dueling lawsuits revolved around a reported 24 failures and 12 deaths, between 2000 and 2002, in Cessnas, Pipers and other small airplanes equipped with Lycoming engines that failed when the planes’ crankshafts broke in flight. Lycoming blamed the engine failures on Interstate Southwest, which had supplied the crankshaft forgings for those engines.

In the original case, a Grimes County jury agreed with Interstate Southwest that the problem was with Lycoming’s own crankshaft design and held that Lycoming had committed fraud against Interstate Southwest; it awarded Interstate nearly $10 million in actual and $86 million in exemplary damages.

That 2005 award was set aside in November by the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston, which ruled that the evidence against Lycoming was “legally insufficient.” The appeals court also ruled that the contract under which Lycoming had filed its $173 million counterclaim was unenforceable under either Texas or Pennsylvania law. (READ MORE) In an e-mail interview at the time, company spokeswoman Kimberly R. Reingold told Providence Business News that “Lycoming is very pleased that the court of appeals has reversed and rejected all of ISW’s claims for damages in this action.”

The Texas Supreme Court’s Friday refusal to hear the case “means Interstate Southwest wins and Lycoming loses – it’s as simple as that,” Interstate Southwest lead lawyer Marty Rose, of Dallas law firm Rose-Walker LLP, said in a statement yesterday. “A jury of 12 people looked at this and said that Lycoming was to blame. This decision affirms that.”

For its part, “Lycoming strongly disagrees with Interstate’s characterization of what remains of the final judgment and looks forward to pursuing recovery of its losses attributable to Interstate’s actions in other pending litigation against Interstate and its insurance carrier,” Textron spokeswoman Karen Gordon Quintal told PBN in an e-mail interview today.

“Moreover, Lycoming yet again reminds Interstate that the $96 million judgment it received at trial has been eliminated entirely, Interstate’s fraud claims have been dismissed entirely, and costs have been awarded against Interstate.”

Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) is a $13.2 billion multi-industry company employing 44,000 people in 34 countries. Its brands include Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft Co., Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO, Greenlee and Textron Financial Corp., among others. Additional information is available at www.textron.com.

Information about the Supreme Court of Texas and its rulings is available at www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us.