246
Stevens, J., dissenting
an Article I court, upheld a law that applied to all cases pending on appeal (in the Supreme Court) from the territory of Nevada, irrespective of the causes of action at issue or which party was seeking review. See id., at 162. That law had generality, a characteristic that helps to avoid the problem of legislatively singling out a few individuals for adverse treatment. See Chadha, 462 U. S., at 966 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment). Neither did United States v. Sioux Nation, 448 U. S. 371 (1980), involve legislation that adversely treated a few individuals. Rather, it permitted the reopening of a case against the United States. See id., at 391.
Because the law before us embodies risks of the very sort that our Constitution's "separation-of-powers" prohibition seeks to avoid, and because I can find no offsetting legislative safeguards that normally offer assurances that minimize those risks, I agree with the Court's conclusion and I join its judgment.
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, dissenting.
On December 19, 1991, Congress enacted § 27A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78aa-1 (1988 ed., Supp. V) (hereinafter 1991 amendment), to remedy a flaw in the limitations rule this Court announced on June 20, 1991, in Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson, 501 U. S. 350 (1991). In Lampf the Court replaced the array of state statutes of limitations that had governed shareholder actions under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78j(b), and Rule 10b-5, 17 CFR 240.10b-5 (1994) (hereinafter 10b-5 actions), with a uniform federal limitations rule. Congress found only one flaw in the Court's new rule: its failure to exempt pending cases from its operation. Accordingly, without altering the prospective effect of the Lampf rule, the 1991 amendment remedied its flaw by providing that pre-Lampf law should determine the limitations period applicable to all cases that had
Page: Index Previous 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007