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Opinion of the Court
of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 494 (1954)). In light of the prior availability of a fee award, and the likelihood that fees would be assessed under pre-existing theories, we concluded that the new fee statute simply "d[id] not impose an additional or unforeseeable obligation" upon the school board. Bradley, 416 U. S., at 721.
In approving application of the new fee provision, Bradley did not take issue with the long line of decisions applying the presumption against retroactivity. Our opinion distinguished, but did not criticize, prior cases that had applied the antiretroactivity canon. See id., at 720 (citing Greene v. United States, 376 U. S. 149, 160 (1964); Claridge Apartments Co. v. Commissioner, 323 U. S. 141, 164 (1944), and Union Pacific R. Co. v. Laramie Stock Yards Co., 231 U. S. 190, 199 (1913)). The authorities we relied upon in Bradley lend further support to the conclusion that we did not intend to displace the traditional presumption against applying statutes affecting substantive rights, liabilities, or duties to conduct arising before their enactment. See Kaiser, 494 U. S., at 849-850 (Scalia, J., concurring). Bradley relied on Thorpe and on other precedents that are consistent with a presumption against statutory retroactivity, including decisions involving explicitly retroactive statutes, see 416 U. S., at 713, n. 17 (citing, inter alia, Freeborn v. Smith, 2 Wall. 160 (1865)),31 the retroactive application of intervening judicial decisions, see 416 U. S., at 713-714, n. 17 (citing, inter alia, Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 600, 607 (1935)),32 statutes
31 In Bradley, we cited Schooner Peggy for the "current law" principle, but we recognized that the law at issue in Schooner Peggy had expressly called for retroactive application. See 416 U. S., at 712, n. 16 (describing Schooner Peggy as holding that Court was obligated to "apply the terms of the convention," which had recited that it applied to all vessels not yet "definitively condemned") (emphasis in convention).
32 At the time Bradley was decided, it was by no means a truism to point out that rules announced in intervening judicial decisions should normally be applied to a case pending when the intervening decision came down. In 1974, our doctrine on judicial retroactivity involved a substantial measure of discretion, guided by equitable standards resembling the Bradley
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