- 55 -
provision explicitly dictates the particular conduct and the
timing thereof to which the amendments “shall apply”. According
to the express text, receipt of payments after the August 20,
1996, date of enactment falls within the intended scope of the
post-SBJPA section 104, unless the explicit exception for a prior
binding agreement, court decree, or mediation award is
applicable.
Here, a final, written, and binding settlement agreement was
not entered into until 1996. Petitioner’s situation therefore
fails to satisfy the requisites for relief under SBJPA section
1605(d)(2). In that event, SBJPA section 1605(d)(1) explicitly
and unambiguously prescribes the temporal reach of the section
104 amendments to the situation at hand. We conclude that
Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., supra, would pose no barrier here to
application of post-SBJPA section 104.
Moreover, less than 2 months after issuing its decision in
Landgraf, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Carlton, 512
U.S. 26 (1994). The issue in United States v. Carlton, supra at
27, was the propriety of retroactive application of an amendment
to a Federal estate tax statute. In that context, the Supreme
Court explained as follows:
This Court repeatedly has upheld retroactive tax
legislation against a due process challenge. Some of
its decisions have stated that the validity of a
retroactive tax provision under the Due Process Clause
depends upon whether retroactive application is so
harsh and oppressive as to transgress the
constitutional limitation. The harsh and oppressive
Page: Previous 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011