Landgraf v. Usi Film Products, 511 U.S. 244 (1994)
Landgraf v. USI Film Products
No. 92-757
Argued October 13, 1993
Decided April 26, 1994
511 U.S. 244
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
Syllabus
After a bench trial in petitioner Landgraf’s suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), the District Court found that she had been sexually harassed by a coworker at respondent USI Film Products, but that the harassment was not so severe as to justify her decision to resign her position. Because the court found that her employment was not terminated in violation of Title VII, she was not entitled to equitable relief, and because Title VII did not then authorize any other form of relief, the court dismissed her complaint. While her appeal was pending, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (1991 Act or Act) became law, § 102 of which includes provisions that create a right to recover compensatory and punitive damages for intentional discrimination violative of Title VII (hereinafter § 102(a)), and authorize any party to demand a jury trial if such damages are claimed (hereinafter § 102(c)). In affirming, the Court of Appeals rejected Landgraf’s argument that her case should be remanded for a jury trial on damages pursuant to § 102.
Held: Section 102 does not apply to a Title VII case that was pending on appeal when the 1991 Act was enacted. Pp. 250-286.
(a) Since the President vetoed a 1990 version of the Act on the ground, among others, of perceived unfairness in the bill’s elaborate retroactivity provision, it is likely that the omission of comparable language in the 1991 Act was not congressional oversight or unawareness, but was a compromise that made the Act possible. That omission is not dispositive here, because it does not establish precisely where the compromise was struck. For example, a decision to reach only cases still pending, and not those already finally decided, might explain Congress’ failure to provide in the 1991 Act, as it had in the 1990 bill, that certain sections would apply to proceedings pending on specified preenactment dates. Pp. 250-257.
(b) The text of the 1991 Act does not evince any clear expression of congressional intent as to whether § 102 applies to cases arising before the Act’s passage. The provisions on which Landgraf relies for such an expression -- § 402(a), which states that, "[e]xcept as otherwise specifically provided, this Act and the amendments made by this Act shall take effect upon enactment," and §§ 402(b) and 109(c), which provide for prospective application in limited contexts -- cannot bear the heavy weight she would place upon them by negative inference: her statutory argument would require the Court to assume that Congress chose a surprisingly indirect route to convey an important and easily expressed message. Moreover, the relevant legislative history reveals little to suggest that Members of Congress believed that an agreement had been tacitly reached on the controversial retroactivity issue or that Congress understood or intended the interplay of the foregoing sections to have the decisive effect Landgraf assigns them. Instead, the history conveys the impression that legislators agreed to disagree about whether and to what extent the Act would apply to preenactment conduct. Pp. 257-263.
(c) In order to resolve the question left open by the 1991 Act, this Court must focus on the apparent tension between two seemingly contradictory canons for interpreting statutes that do not specify their temporal reach: the rule that a court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision, see Bradley v. Richmond, 416 U.S. 696, 711, and the axiom that statutory retroactivity is not favored, see Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U.S. 204, 208. Pp. 263-265.
(d) The presumption against statutory retroactivity is founded upon elementary considerations of fairness dictating that individuals should have an opportunity to know what the law is and to conform their conduct accordingly. It is deeply rooted in this Court’s jurisprudence and finds expression in several constitutional provisions, including, in the criminal context, the Ex Post Facto Clause. In the civil context, prospectivity remains the appropriate default rule unless Congress has made clear its intent to disrupt settled expectations. Pp. 265-273.
(e) Thus, when a case implicates a federal statute enacted after the events giving rise to the suit, a court’s first task is to determine whether Congress has expressly prescribed the statute’s proper reach. If Congress has done so, there is no need to resort to judicial default rules. Where the statute in question unambiguously applies to preenactment conduct, there is no conflict between the anti-retroactivity presumption and the principle that a court should apply the law in effect at the time of decision. Even absent specific legislative authorization, application of a new statute to cases arising before its enactment is unquestionably proper in many situations. However, where the new statute would have a genuinely retroactive effect -- i.e., where it would impair rights a party possessed when he acted, increase his liability for past conduct, or impose new duties with respect to transactions already completed -- the traditional presumption teaches that the statute does not govern absent clear congressional intent favoring such a result. Bradley did not displace the traditional presumption. Pp. 273-280.
(f) Application of the foregoing principles demonstrates that, absent guiding instructions from Congress, § 102 is not the type of provision that should govern cases arising before its enactment, but is instead subject to the presumption against statutory retroactivity. Section 102(b)(1), which authorizes punitive damages in certain circumstances, is clearly subject to the presumption, since the very labels given "punitive" or "exemplary" damages, as well as the rationales supporting them, demonstrate that they share key characteristics of criminal sanctions, and therefore would raise a serious question under the Ex Post Facto Clause if retroactively imposed. While the § 102(a)(1) provision authorizing compensatory damages is not so easily classified, it is also subject to the presumption, since it confers a new right to monetary relief on persons like Landgraf, who were victims of a hostile work environment but were not constructively discharged, and substantially increases the liability of their employers for the harms they caused, and thus would operate "retrospectively" if applied to preenactment conduct. Although a jury trial right is ordinarily a procedural change of the sort that would govern in trials conducted after its effective date regardless of when the underlying conduct occurred, the jury trial option set out in § 102(c)(1) must fall with the attached damages provisions because § 102(c) makes a jury trial available only "[i]f a complaining party seeks compensatory or punitive damages." Pp. 280-286.
968 F.2d 427, affirmed.
STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and O’CONNOR, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which KENNEDY and THOMAS, JJ., joined, post, p. 286. BLACKMUN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 294.