Cite as: 514 U. S. 749 (1995)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
effect is to favor in-state economic interests over out-of-state interests," id., at 579; and it will balance the State's interest against the burden on interstate commerce when the statute "has only indirect effects on interstate commerce and regulates evenhandedly," ibid. (citing Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970)). Respondent concedes that the Pike balancing test is well established but claims its application to the Ohio tolling provision in Bendix was not predictable.
Her argument fails on two fronts. First, in Bendix the Court observed the Ohio tolling provision was so blatant an affront to interstate commerce that it might be considered invalid without engaging in the balancing test. See 486 U. S., at 891; see also id., at 898 (Scalia, J., concurring). Second, the balancing test provides a clear and certain standard in cases such as Bendix, see id., at 894-895; and even if it did not, the "application of precedent which directly controls is not the stuff of which new law is made," Harper v. Virginia Dept. of Taxation, 509 U. S. 86, 112 (1993) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); see Wright v. West, 505 U. S. 277, 309 (1992) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment) ("Where the beginning point is a rule of . . . general application, a rule designed for the specific purpose of evaluating a myriad of factual contexts, it will be the infrequent case that yields a result so novel that it forges a new rule, one not dictated by precedent"); see also Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U. S. 200, 215 (1993) (case does not announce new rule where claims are resolved "under well-settled law"); Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U. S. 481, 496 (1968) (case does not announce new rule unless it indicates "that the issue involved was novel, that innovative principles were necessary to resolve it, or that the issue had been settled in prior cases in a manner contrary to the view held by [the Court]").
As "a mere application of . . . existing precedent," Harper, supra, at 112 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concur-
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