Statutory retroactivity
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 56 U.S. 421 - Hamilton Murray Use v. John a Gibson · 1853Most cited · 70 citing opinions
presumption against
As a general rule for the interpretation of statutes, it may be laid down, that they never should be allowed a retroactive operation where this is not required by express command or by necessary and unavoidable implication. Without such command or implication they speak and operate upon the future only. Especially should this rule of interpretation prevail, where the effect and operation of a law are designed, apart from the intrinsic merits of the rights of parties, to restrict the assertion of those rights.
How often courts cite the case defining “Statutory retroactivity”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “Statutory retroactivity” — 70 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.