Opinion ID: 427024
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Equities of Retroactive Application.

Text: 23 Finally, we must consider whether application of DelCostello to the Plaintiffs' suit would be inequitable. In Chevron, the Court noted the harshness of applying a statute of limitations retroactively to deprive a plaintiff of any remedy whatsoever. 404 U.S. at 107-08, 92 S.Ct. at 355-56. In Chevron, however, the superseding legal doctrine was quite unforeseeable. Id. at 108, 92 S.Ct. at 356. The change of law in that case occurred after a year of costly discovery; here, Plaintiffs' suit was successfully challenged at the outset as untimely. See Perez v. Dana Corp., Parish Frame Division, supra, at 588. Finally, despite the fact that dismissal of their action will deprive the Plaintiffs of a remedy, we do not find that the Plaintiffs actually relied on established precedent in failing to safeguard their claims. As previously noted, no clear past precedent existed as to limitations on the section 301 claim. While Cox v. C.H. Masland & Sons, Inc., supra, and Sanderson v. Ford Motor Co., supra, may have established a tort statute of limitations as to the fair representation claim, the Plaintiffs did not cite or rely upon these authorities in their briefs. 24