Creviston v. General Motors Corp., 37657

Decision Date02 July 1969
Docket NumberNo. 37657,37657
Citation225 So.2d 331
PartiesRuth H. CREVISTON, Petitioner, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION and J. W. Whitesides, Respondent.
CourtFlorida Supreme Court

Lawrence J. Robinson and David S. Yost, of Cramer, Robinson, Ginsburg & Ross, Sarasota, for petitioner.

Dart, Bell & Dickinson and Millican & Trawick, Sarasota, for respondent.

ERVIN, Chief Justice.

We consider here a petition for conflict certiorari to review the decision of the District Court of Appeal, Second District, reported in 210 So.2d 755.

In February, 1962, Petitioner, Ruth H. Creviston, purchased a new Frigidaire refrigerator which was manufactured by Respondent General Motors Corporation. On December 2, 1966, while Petitioner was opening the refrigerator door its upper hinge came apart. The door fell and injured Petitioner. On April 6, 1967, Petitioner filed a four-count complaint, of which three counts were voluntarily dismissed. Count I was based on breach of implied warranty. On motion by Respondents, the trial judge dismissed Count I because he thought it was barred on its face by the three-year statute of limitations provided in Section 95.11(5)(e), Florida Statutes 1961, F.S.A. In affirming the trial judge, the District Court decided that the instant cause of action for personal injuries accrued when the refrigerator was purchased in 1962. The accident occurred four years and ten months after the purchase of the refrigerator. The District Court of Appeal affirmed, saying:

'* * * We are unable to find any Florida cases touching directly on the limitations of actions based on warranties although certain other personal injury cases are persuasive.

'We are of the opinion that the statute of limitations in this case is three years, based on Section 95.11(5)(e). An implied warranty is an action founded on contract not in writing and normally on actions on contracts the limitations usually commence to run when the cause of action accrues. Generally the time of the breach of the agreement and not the date of actual damages sustained commences the breach. * * *' (210 So.2d at 756, 757.)

The pertinent issue here to be decided is whether in a personal injury case founded on breach of a products liability warranty the three-year statute of limitations, Section 95.11(5)(e), dealing with unwritten contracts, 1 begins to run from the time the warranty was breached by the sale of a defective product, or whether said statute of limitations begins to run from the time the injured party discovered or should have discovered, the existence of the defect in the product constituting a breach of the warranty agreement.

We have granted conflict certiorari because the decision below appears to directly conflict with certain pronouncements adhered to in City of Miami v. Brooks (Fla.1954), 70 So.2d 306; Edgerly v. Schuyler (Fla.App.1959), 113 So.2d 737, and Miami Beach First National Bank v. Edgerly (Fla.1960), 121 So.2d 417, 82 A.L.R.2d 927.

The facts in City of Miami v. Brooks, supra, are as follows: The appellee, plaintiff below, brought suit for a breach of contract against the City of Miami for personal injuries resulting from an overdose of x-ray radiation received during treatment at appellant's hospital. The x-ray treatment was applied in 1944. The injury developed and first became known in 1949. At the time of the application of the x-ray treatment there was nothing to put the plaintiff on notice of any probable or even possible injury. The City of Miami appealed a judgment for the plaintiff, asserting that plaintiff's claim was barred by he statute of limitations. Our Court held that the statute of limitations did not commence to run until plaintiff was first put on notice that she had sustained an injury or had reason to believe that her right of action had accrued.

The facts in Edgerly v. Schuyler, supra, are as follows: The plaintiff-depositor brought suit against the defendant bank for damages resulting from the bank's payment of depositor's check upon a forged endorsement. The bank set up as an affirmative defense the failure of the depositor to commence the suit for breach of an implied contract until after the running the statute of limitations, Section 95.11(5)(e). The depositor appealed a summary judgment in favor of the bank. On these facts, the District Court of Appeal, Third District, ruled that the applicable statute of limitations begins to run from the discovery of the forgery by the depositor unless it can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of the trier of fact that at an earlier time the depositor would have discovered the forgery if he had used ordinary business care. The determination of the time of the commencement of the running of the statute of limitations was held to be one of fact.

In Miami Beach First National Bank v. Edgerly, supra, the District Court of Appeal, Third District, certified that its decision in Edgerly v. Schuyler, supra, passed upon a question of great public interest. This Court considered the cause on certiorari. The facts are the same as those of Edgerly v. Schuyler, supra, and on these facts this Court affirmed the decision of the District Court of Appeal, holding that the statute of limitations on an action for breach of an implied contract begins to run from the time the breach was, or reasonably should have been discovered.

From the rationale of the three cases discussed above, we conclude in an action on implied warranty for personal injury under the facts of this case, the three-year statute of limitations, F.S. Section 95.11(5)(e), F.S.A., begins to run from the time Petitioner first discovered, or reasonably should have discovered the defect constituting the breach of warranty. We reach this conclusion because an arbitrary determination that a cause of action accrues and the statute runs on a products liability injury from the date of sale appears illogical with respect to a latently defective product where the defect is not known and cannot be known at the time of sale. The purpose served generally by statutes placing a time limit on the right to assert claims is to prevent a stale assertion of such claims after an aggrieved party is placed on notice of an invasion of his legal rights. A blanket stereotype limitation applied as of the date of sale of any particular product can hardly foster the designed purpose of such statutory limitation in those instances where an aggrieved party has no notice of the invasion of his legal rights in the form of the latently defective condition of the product.

Therefore, based on the allegations in Petitioner's complaint that discovery of the defect first occurred on December 2, 1966, the date the refrigerator door fell on Petitioner, causing her...

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  • Senfeld v. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. (Cayman) Ltd.
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    ...and Miami Beach First National Bank v. Edgerly, 121 So.2d 417, and, a fortiori, in light of the later decisions of Creviston v. General Motors Corp., 225 So.2d 331 (Fla.1969), and Lund v. Cook, 354 So.2d 940 (Fla. 1st DCA), cert. denied, 360 So.2d 1247 (Fla.1978). In both Brooks and Edgerly......
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  • Warranty cases
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    ...time and the propensity of the product to degenerate; misuse of the product; and intervening cause. Creviston v. General Motors Corp. , 225 So.2d 331, 334 (Fla. 1969). See also Standard Havens Products, Inc. v. Benitez , 648 So.2d 1192, 1196 (Fla. 1994). §5:20.5 Related Matters 1. Contract:......

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