retrospective construction
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 43 U.S. 581 - Sally Ladiga v. Ricard De Marcus · 1844Most cited · 10 citing opinions
presumption against
It is a principle which has always been held sacred in the United States, that laws by which human action is to be regulated, look forward, not backward, and are never to be construed retrospectively, unless the language of the act should render that indispensable.
How often courts cite the case defining “retrospective construction”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “retrospective construction” — 10 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.