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

  Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
  In Bendix Autolite Corp. v. Midwesco Enterprises, Inc.,
486 U. S. 888 (1988), this Court held unconstitutional
(as impermissibly burdening interstate commerce) an
Ohio -tolling- provision that, in effect, gave Ohio tort
plaintiffs unlimited time to sue out-of-state (but not in-
state) defendants.  Subsequently, in the case before us,
the Supreme Court of Ohio held that, despite Bendix,
Ohio's tolling law continues to apply to tort claims that
accrued before that decision.  This holding, in our view,
violates the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.  We
therefore reverse the Ohio Supreme Court's judgment.
  The accident that led to this case, a collision between
a car and a truck, occurred in Ashtabula County, Ohio,
on March 5, 1984.  More than three years later, on
August 11, 1987, Carol Hyde (respondent here) sued the
truck's driver, John Blosh, and its owner, Reynoldsville
Casket Company (petitioners).  All parties concede that,
had Blosh and Reynoldsville made their home in Ohio,
Ohio law would have given Hyde only two years to bring
her lawsuit.  See Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2305.10 (1991).
But, because petitioners were from Pennsylvania, a
special provision of Ohio law tolled the running of the
statute of limitations, making the lawsuit timely.  See

2305.15(A) (tolling the statute of limitations while a
person against whom -a cause of action accrues- is -out
of- or -departs from- the State).
  Ten months after Hyde brought her suit, this Court,
in Bendix, supra, held that the tolling provision on
which she relied, 2305.15(A), places an unconstitutional
burden upon interstate commerce.  Soon thereafter, the
Ashtabula County Court of Common Pleas, finding this
case indistinguishable from Bendix, held that the tolling
provision could not constitutionally be applied to the
case, and dismissed the lawsuit as untimely.  The
intermediate appellate state court affirmed the dismissal.
However, the Ohio Supreme Court reinstated the suit.
Its syllabus, which under Ohio law sets forth the
authoritative basis for its decision, see Ohio Supreme
Court Rules for the Reporting of Opinions Rule 1(B)
(1994-1995); Akers v. Serv-A-Portion, Inc., 31 Ohio St.
3d 78, 79, n. 1, 508 N. E. 2d 964, 965, n. 1 (1987),
simply says, -Bendix Autolite Corp. v. Midwesco Enter-
prises, Inc. . . . may not be retroactively applied to bar
claims in state courts which had accrued prior to the
announcement of that decision. (Section 16, Article I,
Ohio Constitution, applied.)-  68 Ohio St. 3d 240,
240-241, 626 N. E. 2d 75, 75 (1994).  We granted
certiorari to decide whether the Federal Constitution
permits Ohio to continue to apply its tolling statute to
pre-Bendix torts.  And, as we have said, we conclude
that it does not.
  Hyde acknowledges that this Court, in Harper v.
Virginia Dept. of Taxation, 509 U. S. ____, ____ (1993)
(slip op., at 9), held that, when (1) the Court decides a
case and applies the (new) legal rule of that case to the
parties before it, then (2) it and other courts must treat
that same (new) legal rule as -retroactive,- applying it,
for example, to all pending cases, whether or not those
cases involve predecision events.  She thereby concedes
that, the Ohio Supreme Court's syllabus to the contrary
notwithstanding, Bendix applies to her case.  And, she
says, as -a result of Harper, there is no question that
Bendix retroactively invalidated- the tolling provision
that makes her suit timely.  Brief for Respondent 8.
  Although one might think that is the end of the
matter, Hyde ingeniously argues that it is not.  She
asks us to look at what the Ohio Supreme Court has
done, not through the lens of -retroactivity,- but through
that of -remedy.-  States, she says, have a degree of
legal leeway in fashioning remedies for constitutional
ills.  She points to Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S.
97 (1971), in which this Court applied prospectively only
its ruling that a 1-year statute of limitations governed
certain tort cases-primarily because that ruling had
-effectively overruled a long line of decisions- applying
a more generous limitations principle (that of laches),
upon which plaintiffs had reasonably relied.  Id., at 107.
She concedes that Harper overruled Chevron Oil insofar
as the case (selectively) permitted the prospective-only
application of a new rule of law.  But, she notes the
possibility of recharacterizing Chevron Oil as a case in
which the Court simply took reliance interests into
account in tailoring an appropriate remedy for a viola-
tion of federal law.  See Harper, supra, at ____-____
(slip op. at 20-21) (O'Connor, J., dissenting); American
Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, 496 U. S. 167, 218-225
(1990) (Stevens, J., dissenting).  And, she quotes Justice
Harlan, who, before Chevron Oil, pointed out that
-equitable considerations- such as -reliance- might prove
relevant to -relief.-  United States v. Estate of Donnelly,
397 U. S. 286, 296-297 (1970) (concurring opinion).
  Thus, Hyde asks, why not look at what the Ohio
Supreme Court has done in this case as if it were
simply an effort to fashion a remedy that takes into
consideration her reliance on pre-Bendix law?  Here, the
remedy would actually consist of providing no remedy
for the constitutional violation or, to put the matter
more precisely, of continuing to toll the 2-year statute of
limitations in pre-Bendix cases, such as hers, as a state
law -equitable- device for reasons of reliance and
fairness.  She claims that use of this device violates no
federal constitutional provision (such as the Due Process
Clause) and is therefore permissible.
  One serious problem with Hyde's argument lies in the
Ohio Supreme Court's legal description of why, in fact,
it refused to dismiss Hyde's case.  As we have pointed
out, the Ohio Supreme Court's syllabus (the legally
authoritative statement of its holding) speaks, not about
remedy, but about retroactivity.  Regardless, we do not
see how, in the circumstances before us, the Ohio
Supreme Court could change a legal outcome that
federal law, applicable under the Supremacy Clause,
would otherwise dictate simply by calling its refusal to
apply that federal law an effort to create a remedy.  The
Ohio Supreme Court's justification for refusing to
dismiss Hyde's suit is that she, and others like her, may
have reasonably relied upon pre-Bendix law-a reliance
of the same kind and degree as that involved in Chevron
Oil.  But, this type of justification-often present when
prior law is overruled-is the very sort that this Court,
in Harper, found insufficient to deny retroactive applica-
tion of a new legal rule (that had been applied in the
case that first announced it).  If Harper has anything
more than symbolic significance, how could virtually
identical reliance, without more, prove sufficient to
permit a virtually identical denial simply because it is
characterized as a denial based on -remedy- rather than
-non-retroactivity-?
  Hyde tries to answer this question by pointing to
other cases in which, she claims, this Court has allowed
state courts effectively to avoid retroactive application of
federal law by denying a particular remedy for violation
of that law or by refusing to provide any remedy at all.
She argues that these cases are similar enough to her
own to permit a -remedial- exception to the retroactive
application of Bendix.  We have examined the cases to
which Hyde looks for support, and conclude that they all
involve very different circumstances.
  First, Hyde points to a statement in the opinion an-
nouncing the Court's judgment in James B. Beam
Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 501 U. S. 529 (1991), that once
-a rule is found to apply `backward,' there may then be
a further issue of remedies, i.e., whether the party
prevailing under a new rule should obtain the same
relief that would have been awarded if the rule had
been an old one.-  Id., at 535 (opinion of Souter, J.);
(-Subject to possible constitutional thresholds . . . the
remedial inquiry is governed by state law, at least
where the case originates in state court-); American
Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, supra, at 178 (opinion of
O'Connor, J.) (speaking of the need to -distinguish the
question of retroactivity . . . from the distinct remedial
question-); id., at 210 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (distin-
guishing -between retroactivity as a choice-of-law rule
and retroactivity as a remedial principle-).  This lan-
guage, however, read both literally and in context,
makes clear that the ordinary application of a new rule
of law -backwards,- say, to pending cases, may or may
not, involve a further matter of remedies.  Whether it
does so, and, if so, what kind of remedy the state court
may fashion depends-like almost all legal issues-upon
the kind of case, matter, and circumstances involved.
Not all cases concerning retroactivity and remedies are
of the same sort.
  Second, Hyde points to tax cases in which the Court
applied retroactively new rules holding certain state tax
laws unconstitutional, but nonetheless permitted the
state courts a degree of leeway in designing a remedy,
including a remedy that would deny state taxpayers,
with pending refund cases, the refund that they sought.
See Harper, supra; Beam, supra.  If state courts may at
the same time apply new law (invalidating tax statutes)
and withhold relief (tax refunds) from tax plaintiffs, asks
Hyde, why can they not at the same time apply new law
(invalidating tolling statutes) and withhold relief
(dismissal) from tort defendants?
  The answer to this question lies in the special circum-
stances of the tax cases.  The Court has suggested that
some of them involve a particular kind of constitutional
violation-a kind that the State could cure without
repaying back taxes.  See McKesson Corp. v. Division of
Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Fla. Dept. of Business
Regulation, 496 U. S. 18, 40-41 (1990).  Where the
violation depends, in critical part, upon differential
treatment of two similar classes of individuals, then one
might cure the problem either by similarly burdening, or
by similarly unburdening, both groups.  Where the
violation stemmed from, say, taxing the retirement funds
of one group (retired Federal Government employees) but
not those of another (retired state government employ-
ees), see Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S.
803 (1989), then the State might cure the problem either
(1) by taxing both (imposing, say, back taxes on the
previously advantaged group, to the extent constitution-
ally permissible), or (2) by taxing neither (and refunding
back taxes).  Cf. McKesson Corp., supra, at 40-41 and n.
23.  And, if the State chooses the first, then the taxpay-
ers need receive no refund.  But, that result flows not
from some general -remedial- exception to -retroactivity-
law, but simply from the fact that the state law that the
taxpayer had attacked now satisfies the Constitution.
  One can imagine a roughly comparable situation in
the statute of limitations context.  Suppose that Ohio
violated the Constitution by treating two similar classes
of tort defendants differently, say, by applying a 2-year
statute of limitations to the first (in-state defendants)
but a 4-year statute to the second (out-of-state defend-
ants).  Ohio might have cured this (imaginary) constitu-
tional problem either (1) by applying a 4-year statute to
both groups, or (2) by applying a 2-year statute to both
groups.  Had it chosen the first of these remedies, then
Hyde's case could continue because the 4-year statute
would no longer violate the Federal Constitution.  This
imaginary case, however, is not the case at hand, for the
Ohio Supreme Court's -remedy- here (allowing Hyde to
proceed) does not cure the tolling statute's problem of
unconstitutionality.  And, her tort claim critically
depends upon Ohio tolling law that continues to violate
the Commerce Clause.
  Other tax examples present different, remedial
problems.  Suppose a State collects taxes under a taxing
statute that this Court later holds unconstitutional.
Taxpayers then sue for a refund of the unconstitution-
ally collected taxes.  Retroactive application of the
Court's holding would seem to entitle the taxpayers to
a refund of taxes.  But, what if a pre-existing, separate,
independent rule of state law, having nothing to do with
retroactivity-a rule containing certain procedural
requirements for any refund suit-nonetheless barred
the taxpayers' refund suit?  See McKesson Corp., supra,
at 45; Reich v. Collins, 513 U. S. ____, ____ (1994) (slip
op., at 4).  Depending upon whether or not this indepen-
dent rule satisfied other provisions of the Constitution,
it could independently bar the taxpayers' refund claim.
See McKesson Corp., supra, at 45.
  This tax scenario simply reflects the legal common-
place that, when two different rules of law each indepen-
dently bar recovery, then a decision, the retroactive
application of which invalidates one rule, will make no
difference to the result.  The other, constitutionally
adequate rule remains in place.  Hyde cannot bring her
case within the protection of this principle, for the Ohio
Supreme Court did not rest its holding upon a pre-
existing, separate rule of state law (having nothing to do
with retroactivity) that independently permitted her to
proceed.  Rather, the maintenance of her action critically
depends upon the continued application of the Ohio
statute's -tolling- principle-a principle that this Court
has held unconstitutional.
  Third, Hyde points to the law of qualified immunity,
which, she says, imposes a -remedial- limitation upon
the -retroactive- application of a new rule to pending
cases.  To understand her argument, consider the
following scenario: (1) Smith sues a police officer
claiming injury because of an unconstitutional arrest; (2)
the police officer asserts that the arrest was constitu-
tional; (3) this Court then holds, in a different case, that
an identical arrest is not constitutional; (4) the holding
of this different case applies retroactively to Smith's
case; but (5) the police officer still wins on grounds of
qualified immunity because the new rule of law was not
-clearly established- at the time of the arrest.  See
generally Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818
(1982).  In one sense, Smith lost for a reason similar to
the tax plaintiffs mentioned above, namely that a
previously-existing, separate, constitutional legal ground
(that of the law not being -clearly established-) bars her
claim.  We acknowledge, however, that this separate
legal ground does reflect certain remedial considerations.
In particular, it permits government officials to rely
upon old law.  But, it does so lest threat of liability
-`dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the
most irresponsible [public officials], in the unflinching
discharge of their duties.'-  Id., at 814 (quoting Gregoire
v. Biddle, 177 F. 2d 579, 581 (CA2 1949)).  And, it
reflects the concern that -society as a whole,- without
that immunity, would have to bear -the expenses of
litigation, the diversion of official energy from pressing
public issues, and the deterrence of able citizens from
acceptance of public office.-  457 U. S., at 814.  These
very facts-that a set of special federal policy consider-
ations have led to the creation of a well-established,
independent rule of law-distinguish the qualified
immunity cases from the case before us, where a concern
about reliance alone has led the Ohio court to create
what amounts to an ad hoc exemption from retroactivity.
  Finally, Hyde points to the line of cases starting with
Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), in which, she
says, this Court has held that a habeas corpus petitioner
cannot obtain a habeas corpus remedy where doing so
would require the habeas court to apply retroactively a
new rule of criminal law.  The Teague doctrine, however,
does not involve a special -remedial- limitation on the
principle of -retroactivity- as much as it reflects a
limitation inherent in the principle itself.  New legal
principles, even when applied retroactively, do not apply
to cases already closed.  Cf. United States v. Estate of
Donnelly, 397 U. S., at 296 (Harlan, J., concurring) (at
some point, -the rights of the parties should be consid-
ered frozen- and a -conviction . . . final-).  And, much as
the qualified immunity doctrine embodies special federal
policy concerns related to the imposition of damages
liability upon persons holding public office, the Teague
doctrine embodies certain special concerns-related to
collateral review of state criminal convictions-that
affect which cases are closed, for which retroactivity-
related purposes, and under what circumstances.  No
such special finality-related concerns are present here.
  The upshot is that Hyde shows, through her examples,
the unsurprising fact that, as courts apply -retroactively-
a new rule of law to pending cases, they will find
instances where that new rule, for well-established legal
reasons, does not determine the outcome of the case.
Thus, a court may find (1) an alternative way of curing
the constitutional violation, or (2) a previously existing,
independent legal basis (having nothing to do with
retroactivity) for denying relief, or (3) as in the law of
qualified immunity, a well-established general legal rule
that trumps the new rule of law, which general rule
reflects both reliance interests and other significant
policy justifications, or (4) a principle of law, such as
that of -finality- present in the Teague context, that
limits the principle of retroactivity itself.  But, this case
involves no such instance; nor does it involve any other
special circumstance that might somehow justify the
result Hyde seeks.  Rather, Hyde offers no more than
simple reliance (of the sort at issue in Chevron Oil) as
a basis for creating an exception to Harper's rule of
retroactivity-in other words, she claims that, for no
special reason, Harper does not apply.  We are back to
where we started.  Hyde's necessary concession, that
Harper governs this case, means that she cannot prevail.
  The judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio is

                                              Reversed.