OPINION
¶ 1 We accepted jurisdiction to answer three questions certified to us by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit:
1. Does the filing of a motion for class certification in an Arizona court toll the statute of limitations for individuals, who are included within the class, to file individual causes of action involving the same defendants and the same subject matter?
2. If so, does this class-action tolling doctrine apply to statutes of repose, and more specifically, to the statute of repose for construction defects set forth in Arizona Revised Statutes (“A.R.S.”) § 12-552?
3. If the doctrine applies to statutes of repose, and specifically § 12-552, may a court weigh the equities of the case in determining whether, and to what extent, an action is tolled?
We have jurisdiсtion pursuant to Article 6, Section 5(6) of the Arizona Constitution, A.R.S. §§ 12-1861 to 12-1867 (2003), and Arizona Supreme Court Rule 27.
¶ 2 Although the issue posed by the first question is not directly presented here, we assume without deciding that the timely filing of a class action complaint in Arizona tolls the applicable statute of limitations for all non-named putative class members from the date the complaint is filed until an ordеr denying class certification is entered. We answer the second certified question in the negative and, therefore, find it unnecessary to answer the third question.
I
¶ 3 The Ninth Circuit’s amended certification order details this litigation’s lengthy history.
See Albano v. Shea Homes Ltd. P’ship,
¶ 4 The first case (“Hoffman ”) was filed as a putative class action against Shea Homes in suрerior court in June 2003. The named plaintiffs did not move for class certification until November 2005. In February 2006, the superior court denied that motion, both as untimely and for failure to establish the “‘typicality’ and ‘commonality’ ” of claims required for class certification under Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The court also denied the plaintiffs’ motion to add eighty-six new plaintiffs. The three named plaintiffs in Hoffman later settled their claims.
¶ 5 The second case against Shea Homes was filed in 2006 by Carriage Lane homeowners not allowed to join Hoffman. After serving a Notice and Opportunity to Repair (“NOR”) on Shea Homes, those homeowners filed a new action (“Albano I”) in superior court. That action, however, was dismissed because the plaintiffs did not respond to the defendants’ offers to repair, as required by the Arizona Purchaser Dwelling Act, A.R.S. § 12-1363 (2003).
¶ 6 Thereafter, the Albano I plaintiffs sent additional NORs to Shea Homes, and on November 5, 2007, filed a third action in superior court (“Albano II”) against Shea Homes. The defendants removed the case to federal court and moved for summary judgment, asserting that the action was barred by the eight-year statute of repose in § 12-552(A).
¶ 7 Before responding to the motion, the plaintiffs filed another aсtion in superior court (“Albano III”), naming as the only defendant Shea Homes Arizona Limited Partnership. The case was removed to district court and consolidated with Albano II. *124 Shea Homes filed a motion for summary judgment in Albano III, which posed the same issue as the Albano II motion—whether plaintiffs’ claims were time-barred by the statute of repose or, instead, whether the statute’s eight-year period was tolled between the filing of the Hoffman putative class action and the superior court’s denial of class certification in that case.
¶ 8 The district court found plaintiffs’ claims were time-barred. The court was persuaded that this Court would adopt the tolling rule for class actions recognized in
American Pipe and Construction Co. v. Utah,
¶ 9 Applying American Pipe to the plaintiffs’ claims, however, the court concluded that tolling could not save the Albano III action because thе tolling rule “presupposes that the defendant is identical in both the class action suit and the individual class members’ suits.” Shea Homes Arizona Limited Partnership was not a defendant in Hoffman.
¶ 10 With respect to Albano II, the district court concluded that tolling was only appropriate from the filing of plaintiffs’ motion for class certification on November 2, 2005, until the denial of that motion on February 24, 2006. The court refused to toll thе statute of repose for the nearly two and a half years that it took the Hoffman plaintiffs to move for class certification, finding “such prolonged tolling unwarranted.” Without the benefit of tolling for the entire period from the filing of Hoffman until the denial of class certification, the district court concluded, plaintiffs’ claims were untimely.
¶ 11 On appeal,
1
plaintiffs contended that the district court erred in failing to aрply
American Pipe
tolling for the period between the filing of the
Hoffman
complaint and the denial of class certification. Because this Court has never determined whether
American Pipe
and its progeny apply to class actions, and more specifically, to class actions subject to a statute of repose, the Ninth Circuit certified the three questions to this Court.
See Albano,
II
¶ 12
American Pipe
involved a putative class action under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Proсedure, a rule that is substantively similar to Rule 23 of the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure. In
American Pipe,
the State of Utah, purportedly representing various “public bodies and agencies of the state and local government,” instituted a federal antitrust class action shortly before the applicable statute of limitations expired.
Under the circumstances of this ease, where the District Court found that the named plaintiffs asserted claims that werе “typical of the claims or defenses of the class” and would “fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class,” [Fed. R.Civ.P.] 23(a)(3), (4), the claimed members of the class stood as parties to the suit until and unless they received notice thereof and chose not to continue. Thus, the commencement of the action satisfied the purpose of the limitation provisiоn as to all those who might subsequently participate in the suit as well as for the named plaintiffs.
Id.
at 550-51,
¶ 13 The Court held that generally “commencement of the original class suit tolls the running of the statute [of limitations] for all purported members of the class who make timely motions to intervene after the court
*125
has found the suit inappropriate for class action status.”
Id.
at 553,
¶ 14 The Court said that a class-action tolling rule was not “inconsistent with the functional operation of a statute of limitations,” which is designed to avoid “stale claims” and “prevent[ ] surрrises through the revival of claims that have been allowed to slumber until evidence has been lost, memories have faded, and witnesses have disappeared.”
Id.
at 554,
¶ 15 The Supreme Court later extended the
American Pipe
tolling rule to parties who, after the denial of a motion for class certification, institute their own actions rather than seek to intervene in the putative class action.
Crown, Cork & Seal Co. v. Parker,
¶ 16 Citing similar policy justifications, most states with class action rules similar to federal Rule 23 have followed
American Pipe
and adopted a class action tolling rule for statutes of limitations.
See Philip Morris USA, Inc. v. Christensen,
Ill
¶ 17 Because this case involves only Arizona’s statute of repose, we need not answer the first certified question, which deals with statutes of limitations. We assume without deciding that the filing of a class action in Arizona tolls the applicable statute of limitations for non-named class members until class certification is denied. This case, however, requires us to address whether such a tolling rule would also apply to a statute of repose. The statute at issue here provides in relevant part:
Notwithstanding any other statute, no action or arbitration based in contract may be instituted or maintained against a person who develops or develops and sells real property, or performs or furnishes the design, specifications, surveying, planning, supervision, testing, construction or observation of construction of an improvement to real property more than eight years after substantial completion of the improvement to real property.
A.R.S. § 12-552(A).
¶ 18 The statute provides a limited exception if injury to the real property occurs, or a latent defect is first discovered, during the eighth year after substantial completion of the improvement:
Notwithstanding subsection A of this section, in the ease of injury to real property or an improvement to real property, if the injury occurred during the eighth year af *126 ter the substantial completion, or, in the case of a latent defect, was not discovered until the eighth year after substantial completion, an actiоn to recover damages for injury to the real property may be brought within one year after the date on which the injury to real property or an improvement to real property occurred or a latent defect was discovered, but in no event may an action be brought more than nine years after the substantial completion of the improvement.
Id. § 12-552(B).
¶ 19 Before § 12-552 was enacted, developers and builders faced an indeterminable period of liability exposure.
See, e.g., Hershey v. Rich Rosen Constr. Co.,
¶ 20 Courts elsewhere are divided on whether
American Pipe
tolling should apply to statutes of repose.
See Albano,
¶ 21 The decisions, however, have not clearly or consistently differentiated between legal and equitable tolling.
Compare Joseph v. Wiles,
IV
¶ 22 We do not believe that characterizing
American Pipe
tolling as either equitable or legal provides a sound basis for deciding whether to apply the doctrine to a statute of
*127
repose. As the split in authority illustrates,
American Pipe
tolling does not fit neatly into either category. More pertinent to our analysis is the Supreme Court’s observation in
American Pipe
that, when determining whether to apply class action tolling, “[t]he proper test is ... whether tolling the limitation in a given context is consonant with the legislative scheme.”
¶ 23 In Arizona’s legislative scheme, statutes of repose differ in purpose and operation from statutes of limitations. The latter generally begin to run after an injury occurs and is (or reasonably should have been) discovered.
See, e.g., Walk v. Ring,
¶ 24 Thus, under statutes of repose, “a claim may be barred if it does not accrue within the allowable statutory period.”
Maycock,
¶ 25
American Pipe
tolling is a court-created rule based on policy considerations and principles underlying Rule 23. The
American Pipe
Court aptly stated that its “judicial tolling of the statute of limitations” was simply a matter of “recognizing
judicial power
” to do so in federal courts.
¶26 We cannot, however, employ a court-adopted rule of procedure to alter the substantive effect of a statute of repose. We have repeatedly recognized that when a constitutionally enacted substantive statute conflicts with a procedural rule, the statute prevails.
Seisinger v. Siebel,
¶ 27 We agree that “many of the policy considerations present in
American Pipe
would support tolling a statute of repose.”
See Footbridge,
770 F.supp.2d at 627;
see also Joseph,
¶ 28 The eight-year statute of reposе period began to run on November 6, 1997, the date of the Town of Gilbert’s final inspection.
Albano II
was filed on November 5, 2007. Applying class action tolling to this ease would thus permit a lawsuit to be commenced nearly ten years after substantial completion of the improvement. Tolling the statute here to permit such a result is simply not “consonant with the legislative scheme” of § 12-552.
See American Pipe,
¶ 29 If the Legislature wishes to permit class action tolling under § 12-552, it may of course amend the statute to so provide. Absent such legislative action, however, we cannot apply
American Pipe
tolling to override the statute of repose in this ease.
See Florez v. Sargeant,
V
¶ 30 Although the Ninth Circuit did not certify a question relating to Arizona’s savings statute, A.R.S. § 12-504(A) (2003), that court stated that its “phrasing of the questions should not limit [our] consideration of the issues involved.”
Albano,
¶ 31 The Arizona savings statute provides in relevant part:
If an action is commenced within the time limited for the action, and the action is terminated in any manner other than by abatement, voluntary dismissal, dismissal for lack of prosecution or a final judgment on the merits, the plaintiff, or a successor or personal representative, may commence a new action for the same cause after the expiration of the time so limited and within six months after such termination.
AR.S. § 12-504(A). Plaintiffs contend that the savings statute does not conflict with the statute of rеpose because § 12-552 “governs the time for bringing an original action,” and § 12-504(A) “governs the time to refile an action that was originally brought timely.” Pursuant to § 12-504(A), they argue, “putative class members can automatically refile follow-on or renewed identical individual actions against the class defendant(s) within six months from the entry of the order denying class certification.”
¶ 32 The savings statute, however, cannot save the plaintiffs’ claims here. If we assume, without deciding, that the savings statute could be applied to claims of unnamed putative class members after class certification is denied, and to an action otherwise barred by the statute of repose, plaintiffs did not commence Albano II within the six-month period required by § 12-504(A). The superior court denied class certificаtion in Hoffman in February 2006. Albano I was filed on May 30, 2006, but it was dismissed in July 2007. Albano II was filed in November 2007, more than fourteen months after the savings statute’s six-month period had expired.
¶
33
Plaintiffs seek
to
apply the savings statute to
Albano II.
The savings statute, however, only allows a plaintiff to “commence a new action for the same cause;” it does not allow successive refilings to be tacked together.
See, e.g., Koffski v. Village of N. Barrington,
VI
¶ 34 For the reasons above, we hold that American Pipe tolling does not apply to the statute of repose in § 12-552. Given our answer to the second certified question, we find it unnecessary to address the first and third questions.
Notes
. Because the Ninth Circuit’s caption does not include Shea Homes Arizona Limited Partnership, we assume that plaintiffs only appealed from the summary judgment entered against them in Albano II.
. Most federal courts addressing the issue have concluded that
American Pipe
tolling is legal in nature and therefore applicable to statutes of repose.
See Footbridge,