Beavers v. Johnson Controls World Services, Inc.

OPINION

MONTGOMERY, Chief Justice.

This ease involves one of the great jurisprudential debates of the twentieth century: 1 Whether an appellate court decision announcing a new rule of law, or changing an old one, should always be applied retroactively or may sometimes be applied only prospectively. We granted certiorari to revisit this question in light of the United States Supreme Court’s abandonment last year, in Harper v. Virginia Department of Taxation, — U.S.-, 113 S.Ct. 2510, 125 L.Ed.2d 74 (1993), of the multi-factored analysis, for civil cases, in Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97,…