This case brings us a familiar friend— section 768.28, Florida Statutes (1977), which waives sovereign immunity. When we visited that statute in District School Board of Lake County v. Talmadge, 381 So.2d 698 (Fla.1980), we held that public employees were partially indemnified, but not immunized from suit for injuries they inflict in the course of their employment. The legislature promptly changed that result by the enactment of Chapter 80-271, Laws of Florida, and in the course of providing public employees absolute immunity from suit endeavored to give that immunity partially retroactive effect by making it applicable to all lawsuits then pending in trial or appellate courts. Id. § 4. The retroactive effect of the legislation is the crux of the problem in this case.
Daniel Knowles had obtained a jury verdict for $70,000 against the Department of Transportation and one of its employees, Robert Gregg, for a motor vehicle mishap. The trial judge refused to enter a judgment against Gregg because he believed that section 768.28 provided state employees immunity from tort liability for merely negligent acts in the course of their employment. On review of the judge’s action, the Second District Court of Appeal had the benefit of our intervening decision in Taimadge, to the effect that state employees were not immune from liability, and the court directed the trial judge to enter judgment for Knowles against Gregg on the jury’s verdict.
Chapter 80-271 became effective just ten days before the district court rendered its decision, a fact which was called to the district court’s attention by a motion for rehearing. The court reconsidered its decision, aware of the legislature’s declaration of partial retroactivity in section 4 of the act, but nonetheless reaffirmed its directive in favor of Knowles. The court declared that Knowles had a “vested right to sue Gregg” which the 1980 statute could not constitutionally abrogate.1 The district court’s declaration that section 4 of chapter 80-271 is invalid is now brought to us by direct appeal under article V, section 3(b)(1), of the Florida Constitution (1980).2
The department and Gregg, joined by the attorney general as friend of the Court, contend here that the legislature could validly apply its grant of immunity for public employees to lawsuits then pending in the courts of Florida. Their principal argument is that there exists no “vested right" which is adversely affected by the immunization of public employees, since section 768.28 has merely substituted the state as the financially responsible party. The theme underlying this argument is that the 1980 statute has merely clarified what the legislature always intended with respect to the liability of public employees.
*1157Knowles views the matter differently. He asserts that he indeed had a “vested” right as a result of his injuries, either in the form of an accrued cause of action — a right to sue Gregg3 — or in the form of a matured cause of action as a result of the jury’s determination of his liability.
It simplifies matters to address first appellants’ underlying theme, that the 1980 statute is really a clarification of the original, 1973 statute waiving sovereign immunity. While we acknowledge the legislature’s right to enact curative statutes which overcome procedural deficiencies in earlier acts,4 the 1980 statute is clearly not of that genre.
In our Talmadge decision, we held that the original statute did not grant employees immunity. The appellants offer nothing to document their assertion that the 1980 statute can recharacterize the law as originally enacted. Although the legislature may well have reacted to our Talmadge decision, that fact alone does not revitalize an earlier, omitted legislative purpose. In fact, the legislature’s grant of only partial, rather than full retroactivity suggests exactly the opposite.
We have already determined in Tal-madge, as best we could, that the immunization of employees was not the legislature’s original plan. We searched long and hard to recreate the legislature’s will, and taking all factors into account we concluded in Talmadge that section 768.28 had indemnified, but not immunized public employees from personal responsibility. Given the Talmadge decision, we can hardly accept an unsupported suggestion that the 1980 enactment really constituted either a clarification of earlier intent, or a restatement of what had always been the law. Given Tal-madge, the 1980 statute can only be what it purports to be — a declaration of public policy by the legislature that the state will henceforth substitute its liability to injured persons for the liability of public employees who are merely negligent.
The question, then, boils down to whether the legislature can do what courts so often do — that is, make a prospective determination of law applicable to persons who are “in the pipeline” because, they are already litigating in that very subject area. To determine whether that problem implicates the maxim that retroactive legislation may not impair vested rights, we need first investigate whether Knowles had a “vested” right of some sort — a right to sue Gregg (as the district court said), a right to full recompense for his injuries, or a right to the jury’s award. That investigation can best be launched by considering the change in Knowles’ position which a retroactive application of the 1980 statute would engender.
Before the statute was passed, Knowles had a jury award for $70,000 against both the Department of Transportation and Gregg.5 The department’s liability limit was $50,000, of course,6 but under existing law at the time of Knowles’ injury (as Tal-madge defined it) he had both the right to the entry of a judgment against Gregg and the right to satisfaction of the $20,000 balance of his judgment from Gregg. After the enactment of chapter 80-271, if the position of the department and the attorney general is upheld, Knowles would have only a $50,000 judgment against the department. The detriment to Knowles from an applica*1158tion of the 1980 change would be his loss of the ability to be recompensed fully for the injuries occasioned by Gregg’s negligence, measured here by the jury at $20,000 more than the state by waiver has agreed to provide.
This analysis simplifies the “vested right” question by eliminating any dispute about “causes of action,” and against whom they may be enforced. Knowles’ right to sue Gregg had been replaced by a jury’s determination both that Gregg was liable to Knowles for injuries, and that the damages suffered by Knowles were $70,000.7 As a matter of principle, it is indisputable that a retroactive application of the 1980 law has taken from Knowles something of value, and that nothing of value has been substituted or otherwise provided.8
Under due process considerations,9 a retroactive abrogation of value has generally been deemed, impermissible. Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U.S. 555, 55 S.Ct. 854, 79 L.Ed. 1593 (1935); Bell v. Isthmian Lines, Inc., 363 F.Supp. 156 (M.D.Fla.1973); McCord v. Smith, 43 So.2d 704 (Fla.1949). The rule is not absolute, however, and courts have used a weighing process to balance the considerations permitting or prohibiting an abrogation of value. Despite formulations hinging on categories such as “vested rights” or “remedies,” it has been suggested that the weighing process by which courts in fact decide whether to sustain the retroactive application of a statute involves three considerations: the strength of the public interest served by the statute, the extent to which the right affected is abrogated, and the nature of the right affected.10 That analysis is helpful here. Without discoursing unduly on the point, we readily conclude that the balancing of these factors favors Knowles. The statute effects an abrogation of Knowles’ right to his full tort recovery,11 not merely a procedural adjustment of his remedies.12 That abrogation clearly outweighs the public’s interest in the 1980 legislation.13
Quoting Mr. Justice Holmes in Forbes Pioneer Boat Line v. Board of Commissioners, 258 U.S. 338, 339, 42 S.Ct. 325, 66 L.Ed. 647 (1922):
Stripped of conciliatory phrases the question is whether a state legislature can take away from a private party a *1159right to recover money that is due when the act is* passed.
We hold, as in Forbes, that it cannot.14
The decision of the court below is affirmed.
SUNDBERG, C. J., and OVERTON, ALDERMAN and McDONALD, JJ., concur.
ADKINS, J., concurs in result only.
BOYD, J., dissents.