Retroactive Application of Statutes: Protection of Reliance Interests

Courts commonly use the term "retroactive" in two senses. On the one hand, it refers broadly to the fact that all new laws to some extent apply to a state of affairs created by past events. The term, on the other hand, embodies a time-honored historical antipathy to laws that disrupt settled expectations. The common law upholds the principle that the citizenry should be able to make everyday decisions with reasonable certainty of the legal consequences of their actions. This principle is based on fundamental notions of fairness and justice. It is well established, however, that the legislature may enact a statute to have retroactive effect. Consistent with the common law antipathy, courts traditionally interpret statutes to apply prospectively absent clear indication of legislative intent to the contrary. The Law Court has recently utilized two different methods for interpreting statutes with retroactive implications. General legislative intent analysis involves consultation of a wide variety of statutory materials in order to ascertain legislative intent as to retroactive application. Definitional analysis, on the other hand, classifies a statute as either substantive or procedural. A statute deemed to affect substantive rights requires prospective application in the absence of clear legislative intent to the contrary. A recent opinion of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, provides an occasion for assessing the adequacy of these two methods. In Bernier v. Raymark Industries, the Law Court resolved a question certified by the District Court for the District of Maine as to whether the strict products liability statute applied where the harm-causing event occurred prior to the effective date of the statute. The statute provides in part that a seller of "goods or products in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user" is "subject to liability for physical harm thereby caused" despite "all possible care in the preparation and sale of his products." The effective date provision of the Act further provides, "This Act shall not be construed to affect any cause of action arising prior to the effective date of this Act." Plaintiffs, the estates of two deceased Bath Iron Works (BIW) employees, alleged strict products liability for wrongful death based upon the defendant asbestos manufacturer's failure to provide labels on its asbestos products warning users of the health hazards posed by inhalation of asbestos dust. The defendant asserted that application of the strict liability statute to this case constituted an impermissible retroactive application of the statute because all harm-productive inhalations of asbestos dust from the defendant's products occurred before the statute's effective date of October 3, 1973.