Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 603

524US2

Unit: $U94

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EASTERN ENTERPRISES v. APFEL

Breyer, J., dissenting

Iron & Metal Co., 335 U. S. 525, 535 (1949) (repudiating the
“Allgeyer-Lochner-Adair-Coppage constitutional doctrine”).
As the plurality points out, ante, at 533, an unfair retroactive
assessment of liability upsets settled expectations, and it
thereby undermines a basic objective of law itself. See, e. g.,
2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution § 1398 (5th ed.
1891) (criticizing retrospective laws as failing to “accord with
. . . the fundamental principles of the social compact”); ibid.
(retroactive legislation invalid “upon principles derived from
the general nature of free governments, and the necessary
limitations created thereby”); General Motors Corp. v. Ro-
mein, 503 U. S. 181, 191 (1992) (“Retroactive legislation . . .
can deprive citizens of legitimate expectations”); Fletcher v.
Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 143 (1810) (Johnson, J., concurring) (sug-
gesting that retroactive legislation is invalid because it of-
fends principles of natural law).

To ﬁnd that the Due Process Clause protects against this
kind of fundamental unfairness—that it protects against an
unfair allocation of public burdens through this kind of spe-
cially arbitrary retroactive means—is to read the Clause in
light of a basic purpose: the fair application of law, which
purpose hearkens back to the Magna Carta.
It is not to
resurrect long-discredited substantive notions of “freedom of
contract.” See, e. g., Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 729–
732 (1963).

Thus, like the plurality I would inquire if the law before us
is fundamentally unfair or unjust. Ante, at 534–537. But I
would ask this question because, like Justice Kennedy, I
believe that, if so, the Coal Act would “deprive” Eastern of
“property, without due process of law.” U. S. Const., Amdt.
14, § 1.

II

The substantive question before us is whether or not it
is fundamentally unfair to require Eastern to make future
payments for health care costs of retired miners and their
families, on the basis of Eastern’s past association with these