Opinion ID: 714786
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Retroactivity under Bradley and Landgraf

Text: 12 As a general matter, in order to determine whether a statute has retroactive effect, the court first must ask whether the new provision attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment. Landgraf, --- U.S. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1499. If not, then the court is to apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision, unless doing so would result in manifest injustice or there is statutory direction or legislative history to the contrary. Bradley, 416 U.S. at 711, 94 S.Ct. at 2016; see United States v. Schooner Peggy, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 102 (1801); Gersman, 975 F.2d at 893. 13 The principle that a court is to apply the law as it is at the time of decision was most fully explicated by the Supreme Court in Bradley. The district court in that case, relying upon general equitable principles, had awarded attorney's fees and costs to the prevailing plaintiffs in a desegregation suit against a public school board. While the case was before the Fourth Circuit, the Congress enacted a statute expressly authorizing such awards. After vacating the district court's equitable award, the court of appeals held that the new statute could not be applied to attorney's fees for services rendered before the effective date of the statute. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the plaintiffs were entitled to attorney's fees under the statute on the principle that, barring manifest injustice or statutory direction to the contrary, a court is to apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision. 416 U.S. at 711, 94 S.Ct. at 2016. 14 Twenty-five years later, in Landgraf, the Court made clear that the principle of Bradley is applicable only to nonsubstantive matters; it does not displace the traditional presumption against applying statutes affecting substantive rights, liabilities, or duties to conduct arising before their enactment. --- U.S. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1504. The new statute at issue in Bradley, the Court noted, affected only attorney's fee awards, which are collateral to the main cause of action and uniquely separable from the cause of action to be proved at trial, id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1503; the statute did not impose a new substantive liability for pre-enactment conduct. From this distinction one might well infer that a statute authorizing the award of interest on attorney's fees would also fall within the play-it-as-it-lies principle of Bradley. 15 The statute at issue in Bradley, however, was not a waiver of the sovereign immunity of the United States; rather, it was an explicit statutory authorization for the award of attorney's fees in desegregation cases--a type of award that was available as an equitable matter before the enactment of the statute and was not barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity. 416 U.S. at 721, 94 S.Ct. at 2021. As a result, the Supreme Court in Bradley had no occasion to advert to the special principle of statutory construction that it had previously made applicable to waivers of sovereign immunity. In this case, however, we must consult that principle.