Celotex Corp. v. Meehan
| Decision Date | 17 March 1988 |
| Docket Number | 66938 and 66939,Nos. 66937,s. 66937 |
| Citation | 13 Fla. L. Weekly 204,523 So.2d 141 |
| Parties | , 13 Fla. L. Weekly 204, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 11,718 CELOTEX CORP., Petitioner, v. Carmella MEEHAN, etc., Respondent. CELOTEX CORP., et al., Petitioners, v. Jean NANCE, etc., Respondent. CELOTEX CORP., Petitioner, v. Louis Key COLON, et ux., Respondents. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Thomas C. MacDonald, Jr., Charles P. Schropp and Raymond T. Elligett, Jr. of Shackleford, Farrior, Stallings and Evans, and James W. Kynes, Tampa, for petitioner in No. 66937.
Jane N. Saginaw of Baron & Budd, Dallas, Tex., and Louis S. Robles, Miami, for respondent in No. 66937.
Thomas C. MacDonald, Jr., Charles P. Schropp and Raymond T. Elligett, Jr. of Shackleford, Farrior, Stallings & Evans, Tampa, James W. Kynes, Tampa, James E. Tribble and Diane H. Tutt of Blackwell, Walker, Fascell & Hoehl, Miami, Susan J. Cole of Blaire & Cole, Coral Gables, Erik J. Blomqvist, Jr. of Wicker, Smith, Blomqvist, Tutan, O'Hara, McCoy, Graham & Lane, Miami, Tracey I. Arpen, Jr. of Marks, Gray, Conroy & Gibbs, Jacksonville, C. Bryant Boydstun, Jr. of Lyle & Skipper, St. Petersburg Tracy Howard of the Law Office of Harold C. Knecht, Coral Gables, Brian S. Keif of the Law Office of Karl L. Santone, Steven R. Berger, Carlos E. Casuso of Casuso & Trompeter, South Miami, Gilbert Haddad of Haddad, Josephs & Jack, Coral Gables, John Liebman, Orlando, and Thomas J. Schulte of Lee, Schulte, Murphy & Coe, Miami, for petitioners in No. 66938.
Freidin & Hirsch, P.A., and Sharon L. Wolfe of Cooper, Wolfe & Bolotin, P.A., Miami, for respondent in No. 66938.
Donald M. Middlebrooks, Thomas R. Julin and Norman Davis of Steel, Hector and Davis, Miami, amicus curiae, for Nat. Gypsum Co. in No. 66938.
Thomas C. MacDonald, Jr., Charles P. Schropp and Raymond T. Elligett, Jr. of Schackleford, Farrior, Stallings & Evans, and James W. Kynes, Tampa, for petitioner in No. 66939.
Jane N. Saginaw of Baron & Budd, Dallas, Tex., Louis S. Robles, Miami, and Michael Y. Rowland of Rowland & Rowland, Knoxville, Tenn., for respondents in No. 66939.
This is a petition to review Meehan v. Celotex Corp., 466 So.2d 1100 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985), consolidated with petitions to review Nance v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 466 So.2d 1113 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985), and Colon v. Celotex Corp., 465 So.2d 1332 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985). These cases involve the application of section 95.10, Florida Statutes (1979), Florida's borrowing statute, to asbestosis claims. In Meehan and Nance, the Third District Court of Appeal refused to apply Florida's borrowing statute. The court held that causes of action which arose in New York and Virginia, because of exposure to asbestos in those states, could be brought in Florida because the injury was discovered in Florida and, therefore, was governed by this state's statute of limitations. In Colon, the Third District applied the borrowing statute as construed in Meehan, and held that an action in which the plaintiff was exposed to asbestos in Florida was governed by Tennessee's one-year statute of limitations because the injury was discovered, by medical diagnosis, in Tennessee.
In Meehan and Nance, the Third District Court of Appeal certified the following question as one of great public importance:
May an action which could not be maintained by reason of limitations in the state in which the allegedly wrongful conduct occurred because that state does not recognize postponement of accrual until discovery, nonetheless be maintained in Florida because Florida postpones accrual until discovery?
466 So.2d at 1107. We have jurisdiction over all three cases. See art. V, § 3(b)(4) and (3), Fla. Const. We answer the question in the negative.
The Florida borrowing statute, section 95.10, Florida Statutes (1979), reads as follows:
When the cause of action arose in another state or territory of the United States, or in a foreign country, and its laws forbid the maintenance of the action because of lapse of time, no action shall be maintained in this state.
The purpose of the statute is to discourage "forum shopping" and the filing of lawsuits in Florida that have already been barred in the jurisdiction where the cause of action arose.
After the district court of appeal's decisions, and while this cause was pending, we considered the application of our borrowing statute in Bates v. Cook, Inc., 509 So.2d 1112 (Fla.1987). In Bates, we addressed the following question:
For the purpose of applying Florida's limitation of actions "borrowing" statute, Fla.Stat.Ann. § 95.10 (West 1982), is the determination ... to be made solely with reference to the state in which the "last act necessary to establish liability" occurred, or with reference to the "significant relationships" that the respective states have to the cause of action?
Id. at 1113 (citations omitted). We stated that we were answering that question "as if it related to any action arising in tort." Id. In applying our borrowing statute in that decision, we approved for use in this type of case the newly revised version of the American Law Institute Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 142 (1971), which reads:
An action will be maintained if it is not barred by the statute of limitations of the forum unless the action would be barred in some other state which, with respect to the issue of limitations, has a more significant relationship to the parties and the occurrence.
Bates, 509 So.2d at 1114 (citing 54 U.S.L.W. 2597 (May 27, 1986)). We also approved the commentary which stated that statutes of limitations should be decided like any other choice-of-law issue and recognized the trend away from labeling statutes of limitations as "procedural." We concluded:
[J]ust as in the case of other issues of substantive law, the significant relationships test should be used to decide conflicts of law questions concerning the statute of limitations. Our ruling does not do violence to Florida's borrowing statute. We simply hold that the significant relationships test should be employed to decide in which state the cause of action "arose." The borrowing statute will only come into play if it is determined that the cause of action arose in another state.
In view of our Bates decision, the application of section 95.10 is now clearly dependent on whether there are significant relationships which establish that the cause of action arose in another state. The criteria for determining whether significant relationships exist are set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 145(2) (1971), which provides, in part:
(2) Contacts to be taken into account in applying the principles of § 6 to determine the law applicable to an issue include:
(c) the domicil [sic], residence, nationality, place of incorporation and place of business of the parties, and
(d) the place where the relationship, if any, between the parties is centered.
See Bishop v. Florida Specialty Paint Co., 389 So.2d 999, 1001 (Fla.1980).
We will address the application of section 95.10 to the Meehan, Nance, and Colon cases separately, because each has distinguishing aspects relating to the certified question, as well as differences in the application of the significant relationships test. The Meehan case produced the primary opinion and the principles adopted in that case were utilized in deciding both Nance and Colon. Meehan has been further complicated by legislation adopted in New York while Meehan was pending in this Court.
During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, Charles Meehan worked as a pipefitter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he was exposed to asbestos products. Meehan and his wife, Carmella, did not move to Florida until 1969. Eight years later, Meehan was diagnosed as having asbestosis and mesothelioma, diseases caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibers. As a result of these afflictions, Meehan died in 1978. Carmella Meehan, as personal representative of the estate of her late husband, filed this suit in 1979. The trial court entered final summary judgment for Celotex in 1981 on grounds that Meehan's claim was barred bv the New York statute of limitations as borrowed under section 95.10, Florida Statutes (1979). A revised panel decision reversed the summary judgment. On rehearing en banc, the revised panel decision stood as the final decision of the court by virtue of an en banc four-four tie on the merits, with Chief Judge Schwartz and Judge Hubbart writing dissenting opinions.
The panel decision determined that under Florida law a borrowing statute is purely procedural and the determination of whether a cause of action has arisen is made in accordance with the law of this state. Meehan, 466 So.2d at 1101 (citing Colhoun v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 265 So.2d 18 (Fla.1972) ; Farris & Co. v. William Schluderberg, T.J. Kurdle Co., 141 Fla. 462, 193 So. 429 (1940); Pledger v. Burnup & Sims, Inc., 432 So.2d 1323 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983), review denied, 446 So.2d 99 (Fla.1984)). In construing section 95.10, the district court reasoned that a cause of action in tort arises in the jurisdiction where the last act necessary to establish liability occurred, and since the accrual of a cause of action must coincide with the aggrieved party's discovery of the injury, a cause of action in tort arises only when the plaintiff knew or should have known of the existence of the cause of action. Meehan, 466 So.2d at 1102. The district court concluded that the trial court erred in finding as a matter of law that Meehan's cause of action arose in New York, where he was exposed to asbestos, rather than in Florida, where he discovered the injury. Furthermore, the district court held that Meehan could bring the cause of action in Florida unless he "knew or should have known through the exercise of due diligence," that his cause of action...
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