Opinion ID: 580893
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Law of Statutory Retroactivity.

Text: 19 It was a principle of ancient Roman civil law that legislation must be prospectively applied unless the legislature specifically decreed a retroactive application. This principle was incorporated into the English common law and carried forward through the centuries by venerable common law chroniclers such as Bracton, Coke, Blackstone, and Sir Francis Bacon. See generally Elmer E. Smead, The Rule Against Retroactive Legislation: A Basic Principle of Jurisprudence, 20 Minn.L.Rev. 775, 775-781 (1936). 20 Prior to 1969, this was a long and well-established principle of American jurisprudence as well: 21 [T]he first rule of construction is that legislation must be addressed to the future, not to the past ... [and] a retrospective operation will not be given to a statute which interferes with antecedent rights ... unless such be the unequivocal and inflexible import of the terms, and the manifest intention of the legislature. 22 Greene v. United States, 376 U.S. 149, 160, 84 S.Ct. 615, 621, 11 L.Ed.2d 576 (1964); see also United States v. Magnolia Co., 276 U.S. 160, 162-63, 48 S.Ct. 236, 237-37, 72 L.Ed. 509 (1928) (Statutes are not to be given retroactive effect or construed to change the status of claims fixed in accordance with earlier provisions unless the legislative purpose so to do plainly appears). Indeed, prior to 1969, American constitutional law was more hostile to the retroactive application of statutes than English common law--many Supreme Court cases held that even legislatively mandated retroactivity may violate the Contract, Due Process, or Ex Post Facto clauses of the Constitution. See Smead, 20 Minn.L.Rev. at 790-797. 23 The Supreme Court destabilized this rather settled doctrine in Thorpe v. Housing Auth. of the City of Durham, 393 U.S. 268, 89 S.Ct. 518, 21 L.Ed.2d 474 (1969), and again in Bradley v. Richmond School Bd., 416 U.S. 696, 94 S.Ct. 2006, 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974). Without acknowledging the centuries of decisions seemingly to the contrary, the Court held in Thorpe and Bradley that a new statute must be retroactively applied to a case that was pending on appeal at enactment unless doing so would result in manifest injustice or there is statutory direction or legislative history to the contrary. 416 U.S. at 711, 94 S.Ct. at 2016. 24 Although many lower courts have interpreted Bradley as establishing a new retroactivity standard, the Supreme Court has now made it clear that Bradley did not silently sweep away the traditional principle. In United States v. Security Ind. Bank, 459 U.S. 70, 79-80, 103 S.Ct. 407, 412-13, 74 L.Ed.2d 235 (1982), for example, the Court discussed at length [t]he principle that statutes operate only prospectively, while judicial decisions operate retrospectively. In Bennett v. New Jersey, 470 U.S. 632, 639, 105 S.Ct. 1555, 1560, 84 L.Ed.2d 572 (1985), the Court referred to the venerable rule of statutory interpretation that statutes affecting substantive rights and liabilities are presumed to have only prospective effect. And in Bowen v. Georgetown University Hosp., 488 U.S. 204, 208, 109 S.Ct. 468, 471, 102 L.Ed.2d 493 (1988), Justice Kennedy for a unanimous Court restated the traditional principle without even citing Bradley or Thorpe: 25 Retroactivity is not favored in the law. Thus, congressional enactments and administrative rules will not be construed to have retroactive effect unless their language requires this result. 26 In the Supreme Court's latest case involving legislative retroactivity, Thorpe and Bradley came under even more vigorous attack. Justice Scalia argued in a concurring opinion (i) that Thorpe was based upon a misinterpretation of Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in United States v. The Schooner Peggy, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 103, 2 L.Ed. 49 (1801); (ii) that it is logically quite impossible to apply a presumption of retroactivity only to cases pending on appeal; and (iii) that Bradley's manifest injustice exception is just a surrogate for policy preferences.... a rule of discretion, giving judges power to expand or contract the effect of legislative action. Kaiser Alum. & Chem. Corp. v. Bonjorno, 494 U.S. 827, 844-57, 110 S.Ct. 1570, 1580-87, 108 L.Ed.2d 842 (1990). Despite acknowledging the apparent tension between Bradley and the traditional principle of nonretroactivity, the Supreme Court majority in Bonjorno declined Justice Scalia's invitation to reconcile these two lines of precedent. Id. at 837, 110 S.Ct. at 1577. 27 The Court's failure to resolve this issue in Bonjorno leaves us with two contradictory rules of construction. Under the Bradley test, we must apply the Act to pending cases unless it provides expressly to the contrary or manifest injustice would result from retroactive application. But under Georgetown Hospital, the Act is prospective only unless it expressly provides for retroactive application. We recently reviewed these conflicting precedents in Simmons v. Lockhart, 931 F.2d 1226, 1230 (8th Cir.1991), and concluded: 28 [Where] Congress's silence is ambiguous ... one must choose between the Bradley and Georgetown Hospital presumptions. The better rule is that of Georgetown Hospital.... [T]he presumption against retroactive application best preserves the distinction between courts and legislatures: the former usually act retrospectively, settling disputes between persons, the latter usually act prospectively, setting the general rules for future conduct. 6 29 See also National Wildlife Fed. v. A.S.C.S., 955 F.2d 1199, 1204 (8th Cir.1992); Criger v. Becton, 902 F.2d 1348, 1353-54 (8th Cir.1990). 30 Both Bradley and Georgetown Hospital recognize that the courts must give effect to a clear congressional directive as to a statute's retroactivity. Such a directive would allow us to determine the retroactivity of this Act without having to resolve this thorny doctrinal conflict. We must therefore examine the Act and its legislative history to determine whether Congress has provided sufficient evidence to discern its intent on this question. 31