The Washington state Court of Appeals has upheld a Spokane County Superior Court judge's dismissal of a breach of contract lawsuit filed against Spokane heavy-duty truck dealer Ken Cook by former dealership investors Clark and Barbara Kinney.

The three-person Division III appellate court panel agreed with Superior Court Judge Jerome J. Leveque that the suit, which was filed in 2007 but stemmed from an alleged 2000 contract violation, was barred by the state's six-year statute of limitation for contract claims. The suit was the last of three the Kinneys filed against Cook involving the 1994 acquisition of the Spokane Freightliner Inc. dealership here, which changed its name to Freedom Truck Centers Inc. in 1999.

Two years ago, in one of the other suits, the state Supreme Court ruled that Cook didn't violate securities laws when he failed to inform the Kinneys about a big loan the business had guaranteed six months before they repaid him a sizable sum of money to cover their purchase of shares in the company. In that decision, the high court held that the Kinneys' July 2000 payment of $266,534 to Cook wasn't a purchase of stock, but rather was a payment to satisfy a promissory note that the couple had signed when they became investors in Spokane Freightliner. The Kinneys had secured the note with their 50,000 shares of stock in the dealership.

The dealership later was forced into an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Cook, who had taken out a $4.5 million loan through a separate company he owned and was a secured creditor of the truck dealership. A U.S. Bankruptcy Court-approved reorganization plan canceled all of Cook's and the Kinneys' stock in the dealership, but Cook's infusion of additional money into the company helped enable it to emerge from bankruptcy, with him as its sole owner.

The dealership said last year that it planned to develop a $7 million building on the West Plains and consolidate its Spokane-area operations there.

That project hasn't gotten under way yet, due partly to the soft economy, but Cook says he hopes to begin construction within a few months.