344
Opinion of the Court
case had become final, Congress enacted a statute providing for the reinstatement of those actions, including the Plaut plaintiffs', that had been dismissed under Lampf but that would have been timely under the previously applicable statute of limitations. 514 U. S., at 215.
We concluded that this retroactive command that federal courts reopen final judgments exceeded Congress' authority. Id., at 218-219. The decision of an inferior court within the Article III hierarchy is not the final word of the department (unless the time for appeal has expired), and "[i]t is the obligation of the last court in the hierarchy that rules on the case to give effect to Congress's latest enactment, even when that has the effect of overturning the judgment of an inferior court, since each court, at every level, must 'decide according to existing laws.' " Id., at 227 (quoting United States v. Schooner Peggy, 1 Cranch 103, 109 (1801)). But once a judicial decision achieves finality, it "becomes the last word of the judicial department." 514 U. S., at 227. And because Article III "gives the Federal Judiciary the power, not merely to rule on cases, but to decide them, subject to review only by superior courts in the Article III hierarchy," id., at 218-219, the "judicial Power is one to render dispositive judgments," and Congress cannot retroactively command Article III courts to reopen final judgments, id., at 219 (quoting Easterbrook, Presidential Review, 40 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 905, 926 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Plaut, however, was careful to distinguish the situation before the Court in that case—legislation that attempted to reopen the dismissal of a suit seeking money damages—from legislation that "altered the prospective effect of injunctions entered by Article III courts." 514 U. S., at 232. We emphasized that "nothing in our holding today calls . . . into question" Congress' authority to alter the prospective effect of previously entered injunctions. Ibid. Prospective relief under a continuing, executory decree remains subject to alteration due to changes in the underlying law. Cf. Land-
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