544
Stevens, J., dissenting
to demand prejudgment interest from all private parties in every case.9 Even if such an equation were well advised, which it may well be, it would say nothing about whether Congress had any reason to know in 1982 that the common law was moving in that direction, much less that it had already arrived there. Yet the Court supports today's decision because the 97th Congress did not clearly state its intention to abrogate a rule that we now make clear for the first time.
My point, in sum, is not that the States had an absolute common-law immunity from a claim for prejudgment interest in 1982; it is only that the State's obligation to pay such interest was so much less than a confirmed rule that we cannot say that the 1982 enactment "left [it] in place," ante, at 539. "[F]avoring the retention of long-established and familiar principles," Isbrandtsen Co. v. Johnson, 343 U. S. 779, 783 (1952), does not mean favoring the retention of rules that have not yet fallen into place.
I respectfully dissent.
9 Whatever it says about reserving discretion about when interest should be imposed, and at what rate, ante, at 536, the Court has tacitly authorized an extension of the rule on which we relied in West Virginia by affirming its application to a claim for prejudgment interest on a strict liability, loss-spreading provision of the Food Stamp Program.
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