Cite as: 527 U. S. 343 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
Landgraf, supra, at 273), because fees questions "are incidental to, and independent from, the underlying substantive cause of action." They do not, in other words, change the substantive obligations of the parties because they are "collateral to the main cause of action." Brief for Petitioners 24-25 (quoting Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 277) (internal quotation marks omitted). Attaching the label "collateral" to attorney's fees questions does not advance the retroactivity inquiry, however. While it may be possible to generalize about types of rules that ordinarily will not raise retroactivity concerns, see, e. g., id., at 273-275, these generalizations do not end the inquiry. For example, in Landgraf, we acknowledged that procedural rules may often be applied to pending suits with no retroactivity problems, id., at 275, but we also cautioned that "the mere fact that a new rule is procedural does not mean that it applies to every pending case," id., at 275, n. 29. We took pains to dispel the "sugges[tion] that concerns about retroactivity have no application to procedural rules." Ibid. See also Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U. S., at 327-328. When determining whether a new statute operates retroactively, it is not enough to attach a label (e. g., "procedural," "collateral") to the statute; we must ask whether the statute operates retroactively.
Moreover, petitioners' reliance on our decision in Bradley v. School Bd. of Richmond, 416 U. S. 696 (1974), to support their argument that attorney's fees provisions can be applied retroactively is misplaced. In Bradley, the District Court had awarded attorney's fees, based on general equitable principles, to a group of parents who had prevailed in their suit seeking the desegregation of the Richmond schools. While the case was pending on appeal, Congress passed a statute specifically authorizing the award of attorney's fees for prevailing parties in school desegregation cases. The Court of Appeals held that the new statute could not authorize fee awards for work performed before the effective date of the new law, but we reversed, holding that the
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