In Sonnier v. Chisholm-Ryder Co., Inc., 909 S.W.2d 475 (Tex. 1995), Chisolm-Ryder manufactured a tomato chopper for use in a commercial cannery at the Sugar Land Central Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections (now, Texas Department of Criminal Justice). Sonnier, 909 S.W.2d at 477. Twenty years later, the Sugar Land Central Unit stopped its tomato processing operations, and the Texas Department of Corrections moved the machine to the Ramsey Unit where it was installed in the same manner as part of a different production line. Id. Five years after the move, Sonnier had a portion of his arm severed while inspecting the machine. Id. A diversity action in federal court was defeated when a jury found the tomato chopper was an "improvement," and the trial court entered a take nothing judgment. Id. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit certified the following question for the Texas Supreme Court: Whether a person or entity that manufactures a tomato chopping machine "constructs . . . an improvement to real property" for the purpose of qualifying for the protection of the Statute of Repose . . . when that machine is originally installed by another party on real estate, then removed and reinstalled by such other party on real estate at a different location. Id. The Court explained the statute of repose was not intended to grant repose to manufacturers in product liability suits, but only to preclude suits against those in the construction industry that annex personalty to realty. Id. at 479. There can be no improvement without annexation to realty, and until personalty is annexed to realty, it, by definition, cannot be an improvement. Id. The act was intended to protect those who actually alter the realty by constructing additions or annexing personalty to it, not to protect those who do no more than manufacture personalty that is later transformed by third parties into an improvement. Id. at 482. The court clarified that: The statute of repose governing the annexation at Sugar Land is not revivified by any activity occurring at another construction site. The subsequent annexation at Ramsey created a new 10-year repose period protecting those who annexed the personalty to the realty there, assuming the facts support a finding that the chopper was an improvement at Ramsey. Id. at 483.