Cite as: 511 U. S. 244 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
rights and past transactions." Ibid. "Upon principle," Justice Story elaborated,
"every statute, which takes away or impairs vested rights acquired under existing laws, or creates a new obligation, imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability, in respect to transactions or considerations already past, must be deemed retrospective . . . ." Ibid. (citing Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386 (1798), and Dash v. Van Kleeck, 7 Johns. *477 (N. Y. 1811)).
Though the formulas have varied, similar functional conceptions of legislative "retroactivity" have found voice in this Court's decisions and elsewhere.23
A statute does not operate "retrospectively" merely because it is applied in a case arising from conduct antedating the statute's enactment, see Republic Nat. Bank of Miami v. United States, 506 U. S. 80, 100 (1992) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), or upsets expectations based in prior law.24 Rather, the court must ask
23 See, e. g., Miller v. Florida, 482 U. S. 423, 430 (1987) ("A law is retrospective if it 'changes the legal consequences of acts completed before its effective date' ") (quoting Weaver v. Graham, 450 U. S. 24, 31 (1981)); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Laramie Stock Yards Co., 231 U. S. 190, 199 (1913) (retroactive statute gives "a quality or effect to acts or conduct which they did not have or did not contemplate when they were performed"); Sturges v. Carter, 114 U. S. 511, 519 (1885) (a retroactive statute is one that "takes away or impairs vested rights acquired under existing laws, or creates a new obligation, imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability"). See also Black's Law Dictionary 1184 (5th ed. 1979) (quoting Justice Story's definition from Society); 2 N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 41.01, p. 337 (5th rev. ed. 1993) ("The terms 'retroactive' and 'retrospective' are synonymous in judicial usage . . . . They describe acts which operate on transactions which have occurred or rights and obligations which existed before passage of the act").
24 Even uncontroversially prospective statutes may unsettle expectations and impose burdens on past conduct: a new property tax or zoning regulation may upset the reasonable expectations that prompted those affected to acquire property; a new law banning gambling harms the person who had begun to construct a casino before the law's enactment or
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