Opinion ID: 502461
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retroactive Application of 25 U.S.C. Sec. 81

Text: 85 AMA claims the district court violated its right to due process under the fifth and fourteenth amendments when it retroactively reversed the law created by the 1981 BIA ruling and retroactively declared the contract between AMA and the Tribe null and void. AMA relies on Anderson, Clayton & Co. v. United States, 562 F.2d 972 (5th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 944, 98 S.Ct. 2845, 56 L.Ed.2d 785 (1978), for this novel proposition. 86 In Anderson, a taxpayer objected to the court giving retroactive effect to a Treasury Regulation it claimed was legislative in nature as opposed to merely interpretive. 562 F.2d at 984. The taxpayer argued the court should not accord retroactive effect to a rule legislative in nature when to do so would produce a harsh or unfair result. Id. In dictum, the Fifth Circuit explained: 87 Strictly speaking, the question of retroactivity can arise only with respect to rules that are at least in part legislative in character. That is to say, to the extent a regulation merely interprets a statute, it in theory merely elucidates a meaning that has resided in the statute since its enactment. If an interpretive regulation merely clarifies what the language of the statute was intended to convey, it is ultimately misleading to term it retroactive. It is no more retroactive in its operation than is a judicial determination construing and applying a statute to a case in hand. 88 Id. at 985 n. 30 (quoting Manhattan Gen. Equip. Co. v. CIR, 297 U.S. 129, 135, 56 S.Ct. 397, 400, 80 L.Ed. 528 (1936)). 89 The discussion concerning legislative and interpretive regulations in Anderson is not applicable to the matter before us. These facts do not involve a rule promulgated by an agency. Contrary to AMA's assertion, the BIA's correspondence was not a ruling which created an interest the district court was required to enforce. As discussed above, the district court was free to determine whether the contract was enforceable under section 81.