Case Name: Albert HAMPTON, Appellant, v. A. DUDA & SONS, INC., Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1987-09-03
Citations: 511 So. 2d 1104
Docket Number: No. 86-357
Parties: Albert HAMPTON, Appellant, v. A. DUDA & SONS, INC., Appellee.
Judges: UPCHURCH, C.J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 511
Pages: 1104–1108

Head Matter:
Albert HAMPTON, Appellant, v. A. DUDA & SONS, INC., Appellee.
No. 86-357.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
Sept. 3, 1987.
H. Scott Bates of Mateer, Harbert & Bates, P.A., Orlando, and Stenstrom, McIntosh, Julian, Colbert & Whigham, Sanford, for appellant.
Mitchell J. Frank of Rogers, Dowling and Bos, Orlando, for appellee.
Cathy Jackson Lerman, P.A., Fort Laud-erdale, for amicus curiae Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers.

Opinion:
ON MOTION FOR CLARIFICATION
COBB, Judge.
Initially, we issued a per curiam affirmance in this case, citing to Pait v. Ford Motor Co., 500 So.2d 743 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987). On Motion for Clarification filed by the appellant, Albert Hampton, and pursuant to a sua sponte reconsideration of this case in view of the recent Florida Supreme Court opinion in Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. v. Phlieger, 508 So.2d 713, 715 (Fla.1987) (Grimes, Justice, concurring specially in result), we vacate our prior opinion and substitute therefor the following:
Albert Hampton was injured in 1978 by an agricultural harvesting machine which he had purchased from its manufacturer, Duda & Sons, Inc., more than 20 years prior to the injury. Hampton filed suit against Duda in 1982 within the four-year statute of limitations. See § 95.11(3), Fla. Stat. (1981). Duda raised as an affirmative defense the twelve-year statute of repose, section 95.031(2), Florida Statutes (1983), which provides:
Actions for products liability and fraud under s. 95.11(3) must be begun within the period prescribed in this chapter, with the period running from the time the facts giving rise to the cause of action were discovered or should have been discovered with the exercise of due diligence, instead of running from any date prescribed elsewhere in s. 95.11(3), but in any event within 12 years after the date of delivery of the completed product to its original purchaser or within 12 years after the date of the commission of the alleged fraud, regardless of the date the defect in the product or the fraud was or should have been discovered.
Duda was granted a summary judgment by the trial court on the basis that Hampton's action was barred by the foregoing statute, the constitutionality of which was first rejected by the Florida Supreme Court in Battilla v. Allis Chalmers Manufacturing Co., 392 So.2d 874 (Fla.1980), and then revived by a subsequent decision by the same court in Pullum v. Cincinnati, Inc., 476 So.2d 657 (Fla.1985).
On appeal Hampton contends that, since his cause of action accrued and suit was filed prior to Pullum, Battilla controls and Pullum should have no retroactive application. Clearly, this contention is wrong. A supreme court decision which overrules a prior decision is retroactive in its operation, unless specifically declared by the decision to have prospective effect only. Florida East Coast Railway Co. v. Rouse, 194 So.2d 260 (Fla.1967); Florida Forest & Park Service v. Strickland, 154 Fla. 472, 18 So.2d 251 (1944). The Pullum decision was silent on the question of re-troactivity. Moreover, if a decision holding a statute unconstitutional is subsequently overruled, the statute is valid from the date of its enactment. State ex rel Gillespie v. Bay County, 112 Fla. 687, 151 So. 10, 22 (1933); Christopher v. Mungen, 61 Fla. 513, 534, 55 So. 273, 280 (1911).
There is an exception to the general rule of retroactive application, as set forth in Strickland:
To this rule, however, there is a certain well-recognized exception that where a statute has received a given construction by a court of supreme jurisdiction and property or contract rights have been acquired under and in accordance with such construction, such rights should not be destroyed by giving to a subsequent overruling decision a retrospective operation.
18 So.2d at 253.
In the instant case, Hampton acquired no property or contract rights under the court's construction in Batilla. Nor did Hampton act in reliance on the Batilla declaration of the unconstitutionality of section 95.031(2), and thereby miss a limitation deadline for filing suit with which he otherwise could have complied. At the time of Hampton's injury, the twelve years following delivery of the harvester to Hampton had long since passed. We note that the specially concurring opinion of Justice Grimes in Nissan explains why the Strickland exception does not apply where an accident occurs after expiration of the twelve years, and there is no detrimental reliance by a claimant on the erroneous court decision.
The majority opinion in Nissan, which held that section 95.031(2) does not apply to wrongful death actions, is irrelevant to the instant case, which does not concern wrongful death. Our previous cite to the Pait decision in our initial per curiam opinion herein was improvident for the same reason: Pait was a wrongful death case.
For the foregoing reasons, the summary judgment below is
AFFIRMED.
UPCHURCH, C.J., concurs.
ORFINGER, J., concurs specially with opinion.