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Opinion of Scalia, J.
cline to do so. Landgraf, 511 U. S., at 280. With respect to postjudgment monitoring performed after the effective date, by contrast, there is no retroactive effect, and the PLRA fees cap applies to such work. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is affirmed in part and reversed in part.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Our task in this case is to determine the temporal application of that provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(d)(3) (1994 ed., Supp. III), which prescribes that "[n]o award of attorney's fees in an action [brought by a prisoner in which attorney's fees are authorized under 42 U. S. C. § 1988 (1994 ed., and Supp. III)] shall be based on an hourly rate greater than 150 percent of the hourly rate established under [18 U. S. C. § 3006A (1994 ed., and Supp. III)] for payment of court-appointed counsel."
I agree with the Court that the intended temporal application is not set forth in the text of the statute, and that the outcome must therefore be governed by our interpretive principle that, in absence of contrary indication, a statute will not be construed to have retroactive application, see Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 280 (1994). But that leaves open the key question: retroactive in reference to what? The various options in the present case include (1) the alleged violation upon which the fee-imposing suit is based (applying the new fee rule to any case involving an alleged violation that occurred before the PLRA became effective would be giving it "retroactive application"); (2) the lawyer's undertaking to prosecute the suit for which attorney's fees were provided (applying the new fee rule to any case in which the lawyer was retained before the PLRA became effective would be giving it "retroactive application");
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