The Supreme Court/The Supreme Court.iso/pc/ascii/1994/94_3/94_3.zc1

Text File | 1995-05-15 | 6.6 KB | 135 lines

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
No. 94-3
--------
REYNOLDSVILLE CASKET CO., et al.,
 PETITIONERS v. CAROL L. HYDE
on writ of certiorari to the supreme
 court of ohio
[May 15, 1995]

  Justice Kennedy, with whom Justice O'Connor
joins, concurring in the judgment.

  We do not read today's opinion to surrender in
advance our authority to decide that in some exceptional
cases, courts may shape relief in light of disruption of
important reliance interests or the unfairness caused by
unexpected judicial decisions.  We cannot foresee the
myriad circumstances in which the question might arise.
In two classes of cases, courts already take account of
these considerations: cases involving qualified immunity,
which protects public officials' reliance on clearly
established law, see Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800,
818 (1982); and cases applying the Teague bar which,
among other objectives, protects States that rely on the
law existing at the time a conviction becomes final, see
Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 310 (1989).  Cf. supra, at
8-9.  As the Court seems to acknowledge, however,
there may be other areas where the importance of the
reliance interests that are disturbed precludes a remedy
despite the retroactive application of the new rule.
Supra, at 9-10.  In my view, reliance on statutes of
limitations falls into that category in certain circum-
stances, see Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis, & Petigrow
v. Gilbertson, 501 U. S. 350, 371-374 (1991) (O'Connor,

J., dissenting); id., at 379 (Kennedy, J., dissenting);
American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, 496 U. S. 167,
221-222 (1990) (Stevens, J., dissenting); Saint Francis
College v. Al-Khazraji, 481 U. S. 604 (1987); Chevron Oil
Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97 (1971), consistent with a long
tradition of judicial authority to formulate rules ensuring
fair and predictable enforcement of statutes of limita-
tions, for instance, through rules pertaining to tolling or
waiver.  See American Trucking Assns., supra, at 221
(Stevens, J., dissenting) (citing Braun v. Sauerwein, 10
Wall. 218, 223 (1870)).  When a hard case presents the
question of our authority to deny relief in a retroactivity
case, that will be soon enough to resolve it; for the law
in this area is, and ought to be, shaped by the urgent
necessities we confront when there is a strong case to be
made for limiting relief despite the retroactive applica-
tion of the law.
  This is not a case where we need to address the issue
whether a party is entitled to a full remedy in a
retroactivity case, because that question arises only
when the right is predicated upon a new rule of law, see
United States v. Johnson, 457 U. S. 537, 549 (1982), and
Bendix Autolite Corp. v. Midwesco Enterprises, Inc., 486
U. S. 888 (1988), did not announce a new rule.  In the
civil context, a case announces a new rule of law -either
by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants
may have relied, . . . or by deciding an issue of first
impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshad-
owed.-  Chevron Oil, supra, at 106; cf. Teague v. Lane,
supra, at 301 (new rule in criminal context is one not
-dictated by precedent existing at the time the
defendant's conviction became final-).  Respondent could
not and does not attempt to argue that the Bendix
decision overruled clear past precedent.  Rather, she
asserts its holding was not clearly foreshadowed.  As the
Court was explicit to acknowledge in Bendix, however,
it was -[a]pplying well-settled constitutional principles,-
Bendix, supra, at 889, not a new legal theory or one
that had not been foreshadowed by other precedents.
  In Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State
Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 573, 578-579 (1986), the
Court identified two modes of analysis to evaluate state
statutes under the Commerce Clause.  The Court will
consider the statute invalid without further inquiry
when it -directly regulates or discriminates against
interstate commerce, or when its effect is to favor in-
state economic interests over out-of-state interests,- id.,
at 579; and it will balance the State's interest against
the burden on interstate commerce when the statute
-has only indirect effects on interstate commerce and
regulates evenhandedly,- ibid. (citing Pike v. Bruce
Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970)).  Respondent
concedes that the Pike balancing test is well established
but claims its application to the Ohio tolling provision
in Bendix was not predictable.
  Her argument fails on two fronts.  First, in Bendix the
Court observed the Ohio tolling provision was so blatant
an affront to interstate commerce that it might be
considered invalid without engaging in the balancing
test.  See 486 U. S., at 891; see also id., at 898 (Scalia,
J., concurring).  Second, the balancing test provides a
clear and certain standard in cases such as Bendix, see
id., at 894-895; and even if it did not, the -application
of precedent which directly controls is not the stuff of
which new law is made,- Harper v. Virginia Dept. of
Taxation, 509 U. S. ___, ___ (1993) (slip op., at 3)
(Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in
judgment); see Wright v. West, 505 U. S. 277, 309 (1992)
(Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment) (-Where the
beginning point is a rule of . . . general application, a
rule designed for the specific purpose of evaluating a
myriad of factual contexts, it will be the infrequent case
that yields a result so novel that it forges a new rule,
one not dictated by precedent-); see also Keene Corp. v.
United States, 508 U. S. ___, ___ (1993) (slip op., at 15)
(case does not announce new rule where claims are
resolved -under well-settled law-); Hanover Shoe, Inc. v.
United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U. S. 481, 496 (1968)
(case does not announce new rule unless it indicates
-that the issue involved was novel, that innovative
principles were necessary to resolve it, or that the issue
had been settled in prior cases in a manner contrary to
the view held by [the Court]-).
  As -a mere application of . . . existing precedent,-
Harper, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 3) (Kennedy, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in judgment), Bendix
did not -decide . . . `an issue of first impression,'-
Ashland Oil, Inc. v. Caryl, 497 U. S. 916, 920 (1990)
(per curiam) (quoting Chevron Oil, supra, at 106), come
-out of the blue,- James B. Beam Distilling Co. v.
Georgia, 501 U. S. 529, 556 (1991) (O'Connor, J.,
dissenting), or represent -an avulsive change which
caused the current of the law thereafter to flow between
new banks,- Hanover Shoe, supra, at 499.
  Bendix did not announce a new rule of law, so I would
reverse on this ground, postponing extended discussion
of reliance interests as they bear upon remedies for a
case which requires us to address that issue.