MELTON, Justice.

In Rosenberg v. Falling Water, Inc., 302 Ga.App. 78, 690 S.E.2d 183 (2009), the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the defendant, Falling Water, Inc., in a personal injury action arising from the collapse of a deck at plaintiff Richard Rosenberg's home. We granted review to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that Falling Water was not equitably estopped from relying on the statute of repose to defeat Rosenberg's construction defect claim. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

As set forth by the Court of Appeals, the record shows the following undisputed facts:

(Footnotes omitted.) Id. at 78-79, 690 S.E.2d 183.

The trial court subsequently granted summary judgment to Falling Water based upon a finding that Rosenberg's claims were barred by the statute of repose, OCGA § 9-3-51. The Court of Appeals thereafter affirmed the trial court, finding that Falling Water was not estopped from asserting a defense based on the statute of repose because Rosenberg's injury occurred after the statute had run. Rosenberg now appeals this ruling, contending in essence that the doctrine of estoppel invalidates the statute of repose, even when a plaintiff receives no injuries prior to the running of the statutory period. For the reasons set forth below, we disagree.

This Court has repeatedly held that a statute of ultimate repose frames the time period in which a right may accrue, if at all. Therefore, if an injury occurs outside this time period, the injury is not actionable, as there is no longer even an inchoate right which may be brought to fruition by injury. See, e.g., Wright v. Robinson, 262 Ga. 844, 845(1), 426 S.E.2d 870 (1993) ("A statute of repose stands as an unyielding barrier to a plaintiff's right of action."); Simmons v. Sonyika, 279 Ga. 378, 379, 614 S.E.2d 27 (2005) ("A statute of ultimate repose delineates a time period in which a right may accrue. If the injury occurs outside that time period, it is not actionable") (citations and punctuation omitted). "A statute of ultimate repose sets an ultimate limit on which injuries shall be actionable. Therefore, by definition, a statute of ultimate repose cannot be `tolled' to permit actions to be brought for injuries which did not occur until after the statutory period had expired." Hill v. Fordham, 186 Ga.App. 354, 357-358(2), 367 S.E.2d 128 (1988).

The statute of repose applicable in this case provides that no action to recover damages for "injury to the person . . . arising out of . . . any deficiency in the . . . construction of an improvement to real property . . . shall be brought against any person performing. . . construction of such an improvement more than eight years after substantial completion of such an improvement." OCGA § 9-3-51(a)(1), (3). Here, the injuries sustained by Rosenberg occurred more than a decade after his home had been substantially completed by Falling Water. As a result, Rosenberg's right to file suit against Falling Water never accrued, and, once eight years passed with no injury, even the possibility of such an accrued right was eliminated.

Based on Esener v. Kinsey, 240 Ga.App. 21, 522 S.E.2d 522 (1999),1 and Hill v. Fordham, supra,2 Rosenberg argues that he should be allowed to maintain suit against Falling Water because: (1) a question of fact remains whether Rosenberg fraudulently concealed a defect in the deck construction and (2) Falling Water should be equitably estopped from asserting the statute of repose defense if such fraud can be shown. Hill and Esener, however, do not support this conclusion. In both of these cases, the respective plaintiffs sustained and discovered injuries within the statute of repose. Each plaintiff delayed in filing suit until after the statute of repose's expiration due to fraudulent acts by the respective defendants which were designed to prevent or discourage the plaintiffs from filing suit. Thus, in both of these cases, the plaintiff's right accrued within the time period set by the statute of repose, and fraudulent acts committed after the injury by a defendant prevented the plaintiff from pursuing this now viable right within the applicable statute of repose. Because the defendant's fraudulent actions in each case prevented the plaintiff from pursuing a timely-accrued right, it was held that the defendant should be equitably estopped from asserting a defense based on the statute of repose. The Court of Appeals explained in Esener the reasoning behind this rule: "the statute of ultimate repose should not be applied to relieve a defendant of liability for injuries which occurred during the period of liability, but which were concealed from the patient by the defendant's own fraud." (Emphasis supplied.) Esener, supra, 240 Ga.App. at 22, 522 S.E.2d 522. In other words, the defendant would not be allowed to cause the plaintiff to miss the deadline imposed by the statute of repose and then use that same statute to defeat the plaintiff's otherwise viable action.

Rosenberg's argument that the exception to the statute of repose set forth in these cases should be extended to his situation is logically untenable. In the present case, Rosenberg never held a timely-accrued right to bring suit against Falling Water for his personal injuries. As set forth above, Rosenberg was not personally injured until years after the statute of repose time period expired. Therefore, he has never had a viable cause of action to pursue. In addition, Falling Water has taken no action to prevent Rosenberg from discovering a cause for his injuries or to dissuade Rosenberg from filing suit with respect to his injuries, even if such a cause of action existed. In Hill and Esener, the defendant was estopped from relying on a deadline that the defendant purposefully caused the plaintiff to miss. Falling Water simply could not have caused Rosenberg to miss the deadline for filing suit for his personal injuries because those personal injuries did not even occur until the deadline had already passed.

Rosenberg maintains that this result is not equitable; however, it must be remembered that the statute of repose, itself, is a statutory construct based on considerations of fundamental fairness. The statute of repose represents an express determination by the Legislature of a time beyond which it is no longer fair to hold a defendant to be potentially liable for his actions.

(Citation omitted.) Gwinnett Place Assoc., L.P. v. Pharr Engineering, Inc., 215 Ga.App. 53, 55(1)(a), 449 S.E.2d 889 (1994). In light of this legislative mandate and our precedent which requires that the injury must happen within the applicable time period of the statute of repose for equitable estoppel to apply, the Court of Appeals properly affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to Falling Water.3

The dissent's own statements of the law, as opposed to its statements of pure opinion, actually support the outcome described above and negate the dissent's unfounded conclusion. For example, the dissent states that this majority creates "incongruous results" by treating personal injury claims and defective construction claims differently. The dissent, however, explicitly recognizes that a claim for property damage due to defective construction typically arises upon substantial completion of a project, while a claim for personal injury does not. This very observation proves that these two causes of action are fundamentally different and that the result here is not at all incongruous. To the contrary, the dissent's discussion is internally inconsistent on this point. Furthermore, the dissent explicitly recognizes that a statute of repose is an "unyielding barrier" to a plaintiff's right of action. Yet, in the next breath, the dissent would eradicate this barrier by its own conclusion of where the law should be, not where it is. In short, the dissent bases its analysis on inaccurate comparisons between admittedly different causes of action and legal conclusions contrary to the very law it cites. As a result, the dissent provides no viable argument for reaching a different result.

Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur, except HUNSTEIN, C.J., CARLEY, P.J., and BENHAM, J., who dissent.

HUNSTEIN, Chief Justice, dissenting.

The unworkable rule the majority creates, distinguishing between cases in which injury occurs and the claim accrues during the repose period of the improvement to real property statute of repose, OCGA § 9-3-51, and those in which the injury occurs thereafter yields irrational results. Neither logic nor the general nature or function of statutes of repose compel, much less support, the conclusion that equitable estoppel is unavailable because Rosenberg's deck collapsed and he suffered bodily injury outside of the repose period, and the effect of the majority's opinion is to countenance fraud. Because I cannot agree that the application of equitable estoppel is automatically foreclosed in this case, I respectfully dissent.

1. In concluding that equitable estoppel is unavailable to Rosenberg, the majority establishes a dichotomy between cases in which the injury occurs and the claim accrues during the repose period and those in which the injury sued upon occurs after the repose period has expired, holding that equitable estoppel is available only in the former category of cases. Absent from the majority's analysis is a discussion of the incongruous results its rule will produce in cases asserting claims governed by OCGA § 9-3-51. Specifically, inconsistent results will occur by virtue of the early accrual date of a property owner's claim for damage to real property based on defects in construction.

A building owner's tort claims based upon defects in construction typically accrue upon substantial completion of the project "because damages usually become immediately ascertainable to the [owner] at that time." Colormatch Exteriors, Inc. v. Hickey, 275 Ga. 249(1), 569 S.E.2d 495 (2002).4 Where, as here, a property owner files an action against a builder based on negligent construction and fraudulent concealment of construction defects, the plaintiff's allegations, assuming their truth, will almost always establish the existence of an actionable injury within the repose period, i.e., damage to the owner's real property. Thus, if Rosenberg's allegations here are true, the initial homeowners, the Nowickis, could have asserted negligence or fraud claims well within the applicable statute of limitation, OCGA § 9-3-30, and the statute of repose in OCGA § 9-3-51. To the extent that Falling Water fraudulently concealed such claims from the Nowickis and their successors-in-interest, the statute of limitation would be tolled. See OCGA § 9-3-96; compare U-Haul Co. of W. Ga., 247 Ga. at 567, 277 S.E.2d 497 (if statute of limitation expired on claims held by original owner for damage to building, claims are not revived when building is sold to subsequent purchaser).

Facts sufficient to toll the statute of limitation would also permit a homeowner to assert that the builder should be equitably estopped from relying on the statute of repose in OCGA § 9-3-51. The majority does not dispute that, so long as a claim accrues before the repose period expires, a plaintiff in a suit alleging defects in construction, like a plaintiff in a medical malpractice case, may invoke the doctrine of equitable estoppel to bar a defendant from asserting a statute of repose defense if the plaintiff shows fraud "by offering evidence of a known failure to reveal negligence." Craven v. Lowndes County Hosp. Auth., 263 Ga. 657(3), 437 S.E.2d 308 (1993). Thus, applying the majority's rule, Rosenberg might be entitled to invoke the doctrine of equitable estoppel to the extent he was pursuing an action for damages for real property subsequent to the deck's collapse because injury occurred and a claim accrued before the repose period expired. The collapse of the deck did not represent a new claim for damage to real property but rather resulted in accrual of additional damages on an existing claim. But, as the majority would have it, even if Falling Water engaged in fraud, Rosenberg is automatically foreclosed from invoking the doctrine of equitable estoppel when seeking damages for personal injury occurring during the very same incident because the personal injury claim arose only when Rosenberg took the fateful step out onto the deck and it collapsed. See U-Haul Co. of W. Ga., 247 Ga. at 567, 277 S.E.2d 497 (claim for personal injury resulting from defective construction accrues when injury occurs).

2. Despite the irrational results it yields, the majority insists that logic and the very nature of statutes of repose compel it to draw a distinction between cases in which the claim accrues within the repose period and those in which the injury sued upon occurs later. I disagree. In concluding that a claim's accrual date is dispositive, the majority relies on Hill v. Fordham, 186 Ga.App. 354, 367 S.E.2d 128 (1988), one of the first Georgia appellate decisions to hold that equitable estoppel may be applied to defeat the statute of repose applicable in medical malpractice cases, OCGA § 9-3-71(b). In Hill, the Court of Appeals stated:

Id. at 357(2), 367 S.E.2d 128. The Court of Appeals then reasoned that since "[a] statute of ultimate repose sets an ultimate limit on which injuries shall be actionable . . . by definition, a statute of ultimate repose cannot be `tolled' to permit actions to be brought for injuries which did not occur until after the statutory period had expired." Id. The Court of Appeals concluded, however, that a different result obtains when the injury sued upon occurs within the repose period:

Id. Hill did not involve a medical malpractice case in which the plaintiff suffered no injuries until after the repose period expired, and its discussion of the availability of equitable estoppel under those circumstances is dicta.5

Contrary to the dicta in Hill and the majority's conclusion here, nothing about the definition or function of a statute of repose such as OCGA § 9-3-51 leads logically or inexorably to the conclusion that equitable estoppel cannot apply when the injury underlying a plaintiff's claim occurs outside of the repose period. As the majority points out, Maj. Op., p. 229, we have stated previously that "[a] statute of repose stands as an unyielding barrier to a plaintiff's right of action." Wright v. Robinson, 262 Ga. 844(1), 426 S.E.2d 870 (1993). But this is equally true whether or not the plaintiff's injury occurs before or after the repose period expires. Thus, if the injury necessary to complete a tort claim occurs after the repose period ends, the injury is not actionable. See Craven, supra, 263 Ga. at 660(2), 437 S.E.2d 308. The statute of repose, in that situation, acts to "abolish a claim before its accrual." Id.; see also Mullis v. Southern Co. Svcs., 250 Ga. 90(1), 296 S.E.2d 579 (1982). In addition, when a claim accrues during the repose period, the expiration of the period before a lawsuit is commenced "destroys . . . previously existing rights so that . . . [any existing] cause of action no longer exists." Wright, supra, 262 Ga. at 845(1), 426 S.E.2d 870; Simmons v. Sonyika, 279 Ga. 378, 379, 614 S.E.2d 27 (2005).

Our pronouncements about the absolute nature of statutes of repose, however, do not foreclose an equitable estoppel from arising when the requisite elements are established under OCGA § 24-4-27.6 I would conclude that this is true regardless of when an injury occurs. When an estoppel results from the estopped party's fraudulent conduct, that party may be foreclosed from invoking the protection of an otherwise applicable legal rule or statute. As our Court of Appeals has explained: "The principle of equitable estoppel is based on the ground of promoting the equity and justice of the individual case by preventing a party from asserting his rights under a general technical rule of law, when he has so conducted himself that it would be contrary to equity and good conscience for him to allege and prove the truth." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Hewett v. Carter, 215 Ga.App. 429, 430(1), 450 S.E.2d 843 (1994); see also Eiberger v. West, 247 Ga. 767(1)(a), 281 S.E.2d 148 (1981) (obligor under promissory note estopped by conduct from asserting defense under usury statute). When it applies to preclude reliance on a statute of repose, equitable estoppel does not purport to toll, modify, or otherwise alter the repose period. Rather, "[e]quitable estoppel is a way of saying that . . . the statute of repose [is] valid and would be [an] absolute defense[] to this action but because of your conduct . . ., you . . . will not be permitted to raise [the defense]." Robinson v. Shah, 23 Kan.App.2d 812, 936 P.2d 784, 796 (1997).7

In Craven, supra, we concluded without hesitation that equitable estoppel applies with full force when a plaintiff in a medical malpractice case has been injured but fails to file suit within the repose period because the defendant knowingly conceals his or her negligence. 263 Ga. at 660(3), 437 S.E.2d 308. As the Court of Appeals recognized in Hill, supra, to hold otherwise would subvert the purpose of the equitable estoppel doctrine by incentivizing fraud. 186 Ga.App. at 357, 367 S.E.2d 128.

"Equity mandates that wrongdoers should be estopped from enjoying the fruits of their fraud." Windham v. Latco of Miss., Inc., 972 So.2d 608, 612 (Miss.2008) (equitable estoppel available to bar reliance on improvement to real property statute of repose); Canton Lutheran Church v. Sovik, Mathre, Sathrum & Quanbeck, 507 F.Supp. 873, 879-880 (D.S.D.1981) (same).8 Yet, by arbitrarily limiting the availability of equitable estoppel based on the date of the plaintiff's injury, the majority sanctions the very result that the doctrine of equitable estoppel is intended to prevent. One who fraudulently conceals his or her negligence and thereby deters another from preventing or avoiding an injury in the first place is, if anything, more culpable than one who fraudulently conceals the cause of an injury after the injury occurs. Likewise, the rationale for equitable estoppel applies with equal if not greater force when both the delayed but preventable injury and the resultant late filing of an action are attributable to the defendant's alleged misconduct.

3. For the reasons set forth above, I would hold that the trial court and Court of Appeals erred in concluding that, based on the date of his personal injury, Rosenberg is automatically foreclosed from arguing that equitable estoppel bars Falling Water's reliance on the statute of repose. I would remand the case to the Court of Appeals to consider whether Rosenberg offered evidence sufficient to raise an issue of fact as to whether Falling Water should be equitably estopped because it fraudulently concealed its negligent conduct.

I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice CARLEY and Justice BENHAM join in this dissent.