The Certified Interlocutory Order places in issue the correctness of the trial court's order. Certiorari granted; Cherokee Laboratories, Inc. v. Rogers, Okla., 398 P.2d 520; and Richey v. Cherokee Laboratories, Inc., and Wood v. Cherokee Laboratories, Inc., Okla., 515 P.2d 1377, and cases to the contrary overruled; and certified interlocutory order affirmed in favor of respondents. Green, Feldman Hall by Wm. S. Hall, Tulsa, for petitioner.
In exercising the discretion to determine the effect to be given a decision, courts have relied on a widely varying spectrum of factors. See, e.g., Li v. Yellow Cab Co. of California, 13 Cal.3d 804, 119 Cal.Rptr. 858, 532 P.2d 1226 (1975) (fairness and public policy); Vaughn v. Murray, 214 Kan. 456, 521 P.2d 262 (1974) (justifiable reliance on the earlier law, nature and purpose of overruling, res judicata, vested right accrued by earlier law, administration of justice); Richey v. Cherokee Lab., Inc., 515 P.2d 1377 (Okl. 1973) (substantive rights); Neel v. Magana, Olney, Levy, Cathcart Gelfand, 6 Cal.3d 176, 98 Cal.Rptr. 837, 491 P.2d 421 (1971) (extent of public reliance and ability of litigants to foresee the coming change in the law); So. Pacific Co. v. Cochise County, 92 Ariz. 395, 377 P.2d 770 (1963) (hardship and economic hardship). This court has enunciated three criteria to be evaluated in determining the effect of a ruling: 1) the purpose of the decision, 2) reliance on the prior rule of law, and 3) the effect upon administration of justice.
¶ 8 Historically, Oklahoma law consistently adhered to the doctrine of "lex loci delicti," dictating that the law of the place of the wrong controlled. See, e.g., Cherokee Laboratories, Inc. v. Rogers, 1965 OK 8, 398 P.2d 520; Richey v. Cherokee Laboratories, Inc., 1973 OK 127, 515 P.2d 1377. In 1974, the Supreme Court observed in Brickner that many jurisdictions had discarded the rigid "lex loci delicti" doctrine in favor of the more flexible "significant relationship" analysis of the Restatement of Laws, Second, Conflicts of Law, §§ 6 and 145, and held: