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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 91-794
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HENRY HARPER, et al., PETITIONERS v. VIRGINIA
DEPARTMENT OF TAXATION
on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
virginia
[June 18, 1993]

  Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
  In Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803
(1989), we held that a State violates the constitutional
doctrine of intergovernmental tax immunity when it taxes
retirement benefits paid by the Federal Government but
exempts from taxation all retirement benefits paid by the
State or its political subdivisions.  Relying on the retroac-
tivity analysis of Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97
(1971), the Supreme Court of Virginia twice refused to
apply Davis to taxes imposed before Davis was decided.
In accord with Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U. S. 314 (1987),
and James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 501 U. S.
___ (1991), we hold that this Court's application of a rule
of federal law to the parties before the Court requires
every court to give retroactive effect to that decision.  We
therefore reverse.
                            I
  The Michigan tax scheme at issue in Davis -exempt[ed]
from taxation all retirement benefits paid by the State or
its political subdivisions, but levie[d] an income tax on
retirement benefits paid by . . . the Federal Government.-
489 U. S., at 805.  We held that the United States had
not consented under 4 U. S. C. 111 to this discrimina-
tory imposition of a heavier tax burden on federal benefits
than on state and local benefits.  Id., at 808-817.  Be-
cause Michigan -conceded that a refund [was] appropri-
ate,- we recognized that federal retirees were entitled to
a refund of taxes -paid . . . pursuant to this invalid tax
scheme.-  Id., at 817.
  Like Michigan, Virginia exempted state and local
employees' retirement benefits from state income taxation
while taxing federal retirement benefits.  Va. Code Ann.
58.1-322(c)(3) (Supp. 1988).  In response to Davis,
Virginia repealed its exemption for state and local govern-
ment employees.  1989 Va. Acts, Special Sess. II, ch. 3.
It also enacted a special statute of limitations for refund
claims made in light of Davis.  Under this statute,
taxpayers may seek a refund of state taxes imposed on
federal retirement benefits in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988
for up to one year from the date of the final judicial
resolution of whether Virginia must refund these taxes.
Va. Code Ann. 58.1-1823(b) (Supp. 1992).
  Petitioners, 421 federal civil service and military retir-
ees, sought a refund of taxes -erroneously or improperly
assessed- in violation of Davis' nondiscrimination principle.
Va. Code Ann. 58.1-1826 (1991).  The trial court denied
relief.  Law No. CL891080 (Va. Cir. Ct., Mar. 12, 1990).
Applying the factors set forth in Chevron Oil Co. v.
Huson, supra, at 106-107, the court reasoned that -Davis
decided an issue of first impression whose resolution was
not clearly foreshadowed,- that -prospective application of
Davis will not retard its operation,- and that -retroactive
application would result in inequity, injustice and hard-
ship.-  App. to Pet. for Cert. 20a.
  The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed.  241 Va. 232,
401 S. E. 2d 868 (1991).  It too concluded, after consulting
Chevron and the plurality opinion in American Trucking
Assns., Inc. v. Smith, 496 U. S. 167 (1990), that -the
Davis decision is not to be applied retroactively.-  241 Va.,
at 240, 401 S. E. 2d, at 873.  The court also rejected
petitioners' contention that -refunds [were] due as a
matter of state law.-  Ibid.  It concluded that -because the
Davis decision is not to be applied retroactively, the pre-
Davis assessments were neither erroneous nor improper-
under Virginia's tax refund statute.  Id., at 241, 401
S. E. 2d, at 873.  As a matter of Virginia law, the court
held, a -ruling declaring a taxing scheme unconstitutional
is to be applied prospectively only.-  Ibid.  This rationale
supplied -another reason- for refusing relief.  Ibid.
  Even as the Virginia courts were denying relief to
petitioners, we were confronting a similar retroactivity
problem in James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 501
U. S. ___ (1991).  At issue was Bacchus Imports, Ltd. v.
Dias, 468 U. S. 263 (1984), which prohibited States from
imposing higher excise taxes on imported alcoholic bever-
ages than on local products.  The Supreme Court of
Georgia had used the analysis described in Chevron Oil
Co. v. Huson to deny retroactive effect to a decision of
this Court.  Six Members of this Court disagreed, conclud-
ing instead that Bacchus must be applied retroactively to
claims arising from facts predating that decision.  Beam,
501 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1) (opinion of Souter, J.);
id., at ___ (slip op., at 1) (White, J., concurring in judg-
ment); id., at ___ (slip op., at 1-2) (Blackmun, J., concur-
ring in judgment); id., at ___ (slip op., at 1-2) (Scalia, J.,
concurring in judgment).  After deciding Beam, we vacated
the judgment in Harper and remanded for further consid-
eration.  501 U. S. ___ (1991).
  On remand, the Supreme Court of Virginia again denied
tax relief.  242 Va. 322, 410 S. E. 2d 629 (1991).  It
reasoned that because Michigan did not contest the Davis
plaintiffs' entitlement to a refund, this Court -made no
. . . ruling- regarding the retroactive application of its rule
-to the litigants in that case.-  242 Va., at 326, 410
S. E. 2d, at 631.  Concluding that Beam did not foreclose
application of Chevron's retroactivity analysis because -the
retroactivity issue was not decided in Davis,- 242 Va., at
326, 410 S. E. 2d, at 631, the court -reaffirm[ed] [its]
prior decision in all respects,- id., at 327, 410 S. E. 2d,
at 632.
  When we decided Davis, 23 States gave preferential tax
treatment to benefits received by employees of state and
local governments relative to the tax treatment of benefits
received by federal employees.  Like the Supreme Court
of Virginia, several other state courts have refused to
accord full retroactive effect to Davis as a controlling
statement of federal law.  Two of the courts refusing to
apply Davis retroactively have done so after this Court
remanded for reconsideration in light of Beam.  See Bass
v. South Carolina, 501 U. S. ___ (1991); Harper v. Virgin-
ia Dept. of Taxation, 501 U. S. ___ (1991); Lewy v. Virgin-
ia Dept. of Taxation, 501 U. S. ___ (1991).  By contrast,
the Supreme Court of Arkansas has concluded as a matter
of federal law that Davis applies retroactively.  Pledger
v. Bosnick, 306 Ark. 45, 54-56, 811 S. W. 2d 286, 292-293
(1991), cert. pending, No. 91-375.  Cf. Reich v. Collins,
262 Ga. 625, 422 S. E. 2d 846 (1992) (holding that Davis
applies retroactively but reasoning that state law pre-
cluded a refund), cert. pending, Nos. 92-1276 and
92-1453.
  After the Supreme Court of Virginia reaffirmed its
original decision, we granted certiorari a second time.  504
U. S. ___ (1992).  We now reverse.

                           II
  -[B]oth the common law and our own decisions- have
-recognized a general rule of retrospective effect for the
constitutional decisions of this Court.-  Robinson v. Neil,
409 U. S. 505, 507 (1973).  Nothing in the Constitution
alters the fundamental rule of -retrospective operation-
that has governed -[j]udicial decisions . . . for near a
thousand years.-  Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., 215 U. S.
349, 372 (1910) (Holmes, J., dissenting).  In Linkletter v.
Walker, 381 U. S. 618 (1965), however, we developed a
doctrine under which we could deny retroactive effect to
a newly announced rule of criminal law.  Under Linklet-
ter, a decision to confine a new rule to prospective applica-
tion rested on the purpose of the new rule, the reliance
placed upon the previous view of the law, and -the effect
on the administration of justice of a retrospective applica-
tion- of the new rule.  Id., at 636 (limiting Mapp v. Ohio,
367 U. S. 643 (1961)).  In the civil context, we similarly
permitted the denial of retroactive effect to -a new princi-
ple of law- if such a limitation would avoid -`injustice or
hardship'- without unduly undermining the -purpose and
effect- of the new rule.  Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404
U. S., at 106-107 (quoting Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395
U. S. 701, 706 (1969)).
  We subsequently overruled Linkletter in Griffith v.
Kentucky, 479 U. S. 314 (1987), and eliminated limits on
retroactivity in the criminal context by holding that all
-newly declared . . . rule[s]- must be applied retroactively
to all -criminal cases pending on direct review.-  Id., at
322.  This holding rested on two -basic norms of constitu-
tional adjudication.-  Ibid.  First, we reasoned that -the
nature of judicial review- strips us of the quintessentially
-legislat[ive]- prerogative to make rules of law retroactive
or prospective as we see fit.  Ibid.  Second, we concluded
that -selective application of new rules violates the
principle of treating similarly situated [parties] the same.-
Id., at 323.
  Dicta in Griffith, however, stated that -civil retroactivity
. . . . continue[d] to be governed by the standard an-
nounced in Chevron Oil.-  Id., at 322, n. 8.  We divided
over the meaning of this dicta in American Trucking
Assns., Inc. v. Smith, 496 U. S. 167 (1990).  The four
Justices in the plurality used -the Chevron Oil test- to
consider whether to confine -the application of [American
Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Scheiner, 483 U. S. 266 (1987)]
to taxation of highway use prior to June 23, 1987, the
date we decided Scheiner.-  Id., at 179 (opinion of O'Con-
nor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and White and
Kennedy, JJ.).  Four other Justices rejected the plurality's
-anomalous approach- to retroactivity and declined to hold
that -the law applicable to a particular case is the law
which the parties believe in good faith to be applicable to
the case.-  Id., at 219 (Stevens, J., dissenting, joined by
Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ.).  Finally, despite
concurring in the judgment, Justice Scalia -share[d]- the
dissent's -perception that prospective decisionmaking is
incompatible with the judicial role.-  Id., at 201 (Scalia,
J., concurring in judgment).
  Griffith and American Trucking thus left unresolved the
precise extent to which the presumptively retroactive effect
of this Court's decisions may be altered in civil cases.
But we have since adopted a rule requiring the retroactive
application of a civil decision such as Davis.  Although
James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 501 U. S. ___
(1991), did not produce a unified opinion for the Court, a
majority of Justices agreed that a rule of federal law, once
announced and applied to the parties to the controversy,
must be given full retroactive effect by all courts adjudi-
cating federal law.  In announcing the judgment of the
Court, Justice Souter laid down a rule for determining
the retroactive effect of a civil decision: After the case an-
nouncing any rule of federal law has -appl[ied] that rule
with respect to the litigants- before the court, no court
may -refuse to apply [that] rule . . . retroactively.-  Id.,
at ___ (slip op., at 9) (opinion of Souter, J., joined by
Stevens, J.).  Justice Souter's view of retroactivity
superseded -any claim based on a Chevron Oil analysis.-
Ibid.  Justice White likewise concluded that a decision
-extending the benefit of the judgment- to the winning
party -is to be applied to other litigants whose cases were
not final at the time of the [first] decision.-  Id., at ___
(slip op., at 1) (opinion concurring in judgment).  Three
other Justices agreed that -our judicial responsibility . . .
requir[es] retroactive application of each . . . rule we
announce.-  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2) (Blackmun, J.,
joined by Marshall and Scalia, JJ., concurring in judg-
ment).  See also id., at ___ (slip op., at 1-2) (Scalia, J.,
joined by Marshall and Blackmun, JJ., concurring in
judgment).
  Beam controls this case, and we accordingly adopt a
rule that fairly reflects the position of a majority of
Justices in Beam: When this Court applies a rule of
federal law to the parties before it, that rule is the
controlling interpretation of federal law and must be given
full retroactive effect in all cases still open on direct
review and as to all events, regardless of whether such
events predate or postdate our announcement of the rule.
This rule extends Griffith's ban against -selective applica-
tion of new rules.-  479 U. S., at 323.  Mindful of the
-basic norms of constitutional adjudication- that animated
our view of retroactivity in the criminal context, id., at
322, we now prohibit the erection of selective temporal
barriers to the application of federal law in noncriminal
cases.  In both civil and criminal cases, we can scarcely
permit -the substantive law [to] shift and spring- accord-
ing to -the particular equities of [individual parties']
claims- of actual reliance on an old rule and of harm from
a retroactive application of the new rule.  Beam, supra,
at ___ (slip op., at 12) (opinion of Souter, J.).  Our ap-
proach to retroactivity heeds the admonition that -[t]he
Court has no more constitutional authority in civil cases
than in criminal cases to disregard current law or to treat
similarly situated litigants differently.-  American Truck-
ing, supra, at 214 (Stevens, J., dissenting).
  The Supreme Court of Virginia -appl[ied] the three-
pronged Chevron Oil test in deciding the retroactivity
issue- presented by this litigation.  242 Va., at 326, 410
S. E. 2d, at 631.  When this Court does not -reserve the
question whether its holding should be applied to the
parties before it,- however, an opinion announcing a rule
of federal law -is properly understood to have followed the
normal rule of retroactive application- and must be -read
to hold . . . that its rule should apply retroactively to the
litigants then before the Court.-  Beam, 501 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 8) (opinion of Souter, J.).  Accord, id., at ___
(slip op., at 1) (White, J., concurring in judgment); id., at
___ (slip op., at 2) (O'Connor, J., dissenting).  Further-
more, the legal imperative -to apply a rule of federal law
retroactively after the case announcing the rule has
already done so- must -prevai[l] over any claim based on
a Chevron Oil analysis.-  Id. at ___ (slip op., at 9) (opin-
ion of Souter, J.).
  In an effort to distinguish Davis, the Supreme Court of
Virginia surmised that this Court had -made no . . .
ruling- about the application of the rule announced in
Davis -retroactively to the litigants in that case.-  242
Va., at 326, 410 S. E. 2d, at 631.  -[B]ecause the retroac-
tivity issue was not decided in Davis,- the court believed
that it was -not foreclosed by precedent from applying the
three-pronged Chevron Oil test in deciding the retroactiv-
ity issue in the present case.-  Ibid.
  We disagree.  Davis did not hold that preferential state
tax treatment of state and local employee pensions,
though constitutionally invalid in the future, should be
upheld as to all events predating the announcement of
Davis.  The governmental appellee in Davis -conceded that
a refund [would have been] appropriate- if we were to
conclude that -the Michigan Income Tax Act violate[d]
principles of intergovernmental tax immunity by favoring
retired state and local governmental employees over
retired federal employees.-  489 U. S., at 817.  We stated
that -to the extent appellant has paid taxes pursuant to
this invalid tax scheme, he is entitled to a refund.-  Ibid.
Far from reserving the retroactivity question, our response
to the appellee's concession constituted a retroactive
application of the rule announced in Davis to the parties
before the Court.  Because a decision to accord solely pro-
spective effect to Davis would have foreclosed any discus-
sion of remedial issues, our -consideration of remedial
issues- meant -necessarily- that we retroactively applied
the rule we announced in Davis to the litigants before us.
Beam, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 8) (opinion of Souter, J.).
Therefore, under Griffith, Beam, and the retroactivity
approach we adopt today, the Supreme Court of Virginia
must apply Davis in petitioners' refund action.

                           III
  Respondent Virginia Department of Taxation defends the
judgment below as resting on an independent and ade-
quate state ground that relieved the Supreme Court of
Virginia of any obligation to apply Davis to events occur-
ring before our announcement of that decision.  Petitioners
had contended that -even if the Davis decision applie[d]
prospectively only,- they were entitled to relief under
Virginia's tax refund statute, Va. Code. Ann. 58.1-1826
(1991).  241 Va., at 241, 401 S. E. 2d, at 873.  The
Virginia court rejected their argument.  It first reasoned
that because Davis did not apply retroactively, tax assess-
ments predating Davis were -neither erroneous nor
improper within the meaning- of Virginia's tax statute.
Ibid.  The court then offered -another reason- for rejecting
petitioners' -state-law contention-: -We previously have
held that this Court's ruling declaring a taxing scheme
unconstitutional is to be applied prospectively only.-  Ibid.
(citing Perkins v. Albemarle County, 214 Va. 240, 198
S. E. 2d 626, aff'd and modified on reh'g, 214 Va. 416,
200 S. E. 2d 566 (1973); Capehart v. City of Chesapeake,
No. 5459 (Va. Cir. Ct., Oct. 16, 1974), appeal denied, 215
Va. xlvii, cert. denied, 423 U. S. 875 (1975)).  The formu-
lation of this state-law retroactivity doctrine-that -consid-
eration should be given to the purpose of the new rule,
the extent of the reliance on the old rule, and the effect
on the administration of justice of a retroactive application
of the new rule,- Fountain v. Fountain, 214 Va. 347, 348,
200 S. E. 2d 513, 514 (1973), cert. denied, 416 U. S. 939
(1974), quoted in 241 Va., at 241, 401 S. E. 2d, at 874-suggests that the Supreme Court of Virginia has simply
incorporated into state law the three-pronged analysis of
Chevron Oil, 404 U. S., at 106-107, and the criminal
retroactivity cases overruled by Griffith, see, e.g., Stovall
v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293, 297 (1967).
  We reject the Department's defense of the decision
below.  The Supremacy Clause, U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2,
does not allow federal retroactivity doctrine to be sup-
planted by the invocation of a contrary approach to
retroactivity under state law.  Whatever freedom state
courts may enjoy to limit the retroactive operation of their
own interpretations of state law, see Great Northern R.
Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 U. S. 358,
364-366 (1932), cannot extend to their interpretations of
federal law.  See National Mines Corp. v. Caryl, 497 U. S.
922, 923 (1990) (per curiam); Ashland Oil, Inc. v. Caryl,
497 U. S. 916, 917 (1990) (per curiam).
  We also decline the Department of Taxation's invitation
to affirm the judgment as resting on the independent and
adequate ground that Virginia's law of remedies offered
no -retrospective refund remedy for taxable years con-
cluded before Davis- was announced.  Brief for Respondent
33.  The Virginia Supreme Court's conclusion that the
challenged tax assessments were -neither erroneous nor
improper within the meaning- of the refund statute rested
solely on the court's determination that Davis did not
apply retroactively.  241 Va., at 241, 401 S. E. 2d, at 873.
  Because we have decided that Davis applies retroac-
tively to the tax years at issue in petitioners' refund
action, we reverse the judgment below.  We do not enter
judgment for petitioners, however, because federal law
does not necessarily entitle them to a refund.  Rather, the
Constitution requires Virginia -to provide relief consistent
with federal due process principles.-  American Trucking,
496 U. S., at 181 (plurality opinion).  Under the Due
Process Clause, U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, 1, -a State found
to have imposed an impermissibly discriminatory tax
retains flexibility in responding to this determination.-
McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages &
Tobacco, 496 U. S. 18, 39-40 (1990).  If Virginia -offers
a meaningful opportunity for taxpayers to withhold
contested tax assessments and to challenge their validity
in a predeprivation hearing,- the -availability of a pre-
deprivation hearing constitutes a procedural safeguard . . .
sufficient by itself to satisfy the Due Process Clause.-  Id.,
at 38, n. 21.  On the other hand, if no such predepriva-
tion remedy exists, -the Due Process Clause of the Four-
teenth Amendment obligates the State to provide meaning-
ful backward-looking relief to rectify any unconstitutional
deprivation.-  Id., at 31 (footnotes omitted).  In provid-
ing such relief, a State may either award full refunds to
those burdened by an unlawful tax or issue some other
order that -create[s] in hindsight a nondiscriminatory
scheme.-  Id., at 40.  Cf. Davis, 489 U. S., at 818 (sug-
gesting that a State's failure to respect intergovernmental
tax immunity could be cured -either by extending [a
discriminatory] tax exemption to retired federal employees
. . . or by eliminating the exemption for retired state and
local government employees-).
  The constitutional sufficiency of any remedy thus turns
(at least initially) on whether Virginia law -provide[s] a[n]
[adequate] form of `predeprivation process,' for example,
by authorizing taxpayers to bring suit to enjoin imposition
of a tax prior to its payment, or by allowing taxpayers to
withhold payment and then interpose their objections as
defenses in a tax enforcement proceeding.-  McKesson, 496
U. S., at 36-37.  Because this issue has not been properly
presented, we leave to Virginia courts this question of
state law and the performance of other tasks pertaining
to the crafting of any appropriate remedy.  Virginia -is
free to choose which form of relief it will provide, so long
as that relief satisfies the minimum federal requirements
we have outlined.-  Id., at 51-52.  State law may provide
relief beyond the demands of federal due process, id., at
52, n. 36, but under no circumstances may it confine
petitioners to a lesser remedy, see id., at 44-51.

                           IV
  We reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of
Virginia, and we remand the case for further proceedings
not inconsistent with this opinion.
                                            So ordered.