Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 592.0

524US2

Unit: $U94

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 498 (1998)

547

Opinion of Kennedy, J.

ed.)). These authorities conﬁrm my view that the case is
controlled not by the Takings Clause but by well-settled due
process principles respecting retroactive laws.

Given my view that the takings analysis is inapplicable
in this case, it is unnecessary to comment upon the plural-
ity’s effort to resolve a jurisdictional question despite little
brieﬁng by the parties on a point which has divided the
Courts of Appeals.

II

When the constitutionality of the Coal Act is tested under
the Due Process Clause, it must be invalidated. Accepted
principles forbidding retroactive legislation of this type are
sufﬁcient to dispose of the case.

Although we have been hesitant to subject economic legis-
lation to due process scrutiny as a general matter, the Court
has given careful consideration to due process challenges to
legislation with retroactive effects. As today’s plurality
opinion notes, for centuries our law has harbored a singular
distrust of retroactive statutes. Ante, at 532–533.
In the
words of Chancellor Kent: “A retroactive statute would par-
take in its character of the mischiefs of an ex post facto law
. . . ; and in every other case relating to contracts or property,
it would be against every sound principle.”
1 J. Kent, Com-
mentaries on American Law *455; see also ibid. (rule against
retroactive application of statutes to be “founded not only in
English law, but on the principles of general jurisprudence”).
Justice Story reached a similar conclusion: “Retrospective
laws are, indeed, generally unjust; and, as has been forcibly
said, neither accord with sound legislation nor with the fun-
damental principles of the social compact.”
2 J. Story, Com-
mentaries on the Constitution § 1398 (5th ed. 1891).

The Court’s due process jurisprudence reﬂects this dis-
trust. For example, in Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining
Co., 428 U. S. 1, 15 (1976), the Court held due process re-
quires an inquiry into whether in enacting the retroactive
law the legislature acted in an arbitrary and irrational way.
Even though prospective economic legislation carries with it