home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
The Supreme Court
/
The Supreme Court.iso
/
pc
/
ascii
/
1994
/
94_834
/
94_834.zc
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1995-05-30
|
2KB
|
56 lines
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
Nos. 94-834 and 94-835
--------
NORTH STAR STEEL COMPANY, PETITIONER
94-834 v.
CHARLES A. THOMAS et al.
CROWN CORK & SEAL CO., INC., PETITIONER
94-835 v.
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA,
AFL-CIO-CLC
on writs of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the third circuit
[May 30, 1995]
Justice Scalia, concurring in the judgment.
I remain of the view that when Congress has not
prescribed a limitations period to govern a cause of
action that it has created, the Court should apply the
appropriate state statute of limitations, or, if doing so
would frustrate the purposes of the federal enactment,
no limitations period at all. See Agency Holding Corp.
v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U. S. 143, 157-170
(1987) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment); see also
Reed v. United Transportation Union, 488 U. S. 319, 334
(1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). The rule
first announced in DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U. S.
151, 172 (1983), that a federal limitations period should
be selected when it presents a -closer analogy- to the
federal cause of action and is -significantly more
appropriate,- I find to be not only erroneous but unwork-
able. If the -closer analogy- part of this is to be taken
seriously, the federal statute would end up applying in
some States but not in others; and the -significantly
more appropriate- part is meaningless, since in all
honesty a uniform nationwide limitations period for a
federal cause of action is always significantly more
appropriate.
I have joined in applying to a so-called -implied- cause
of action the limitations period contained in the federal
statute out of which the cause of action had been
judicially created. See Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis &
Petigrow v. Gilbertson, 501 U. S. 350, 364-366 (1991)
(Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judg-
ment). But the cause of action at issue here was
created not by us, but by Congress. Accordingly, in my
view, the appropriate state statute of limitations
governs.
Because none of the state statutes arguably applicable
here would frustrate the purposes of the Worker Adjust-
ment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), 29
U. S. C. 2101 et seq., and because the WARN actions
before us are timely under even the shortest of those
statutes, I concur in the Court's judgment.