Ratha v. Rubicon Resources LLC

On February 20, 2026, the en banc Ninth Circuit botched the test for determining whether a statute applies retroactively to pre-enactment conduct. The decision was a setback for WLF, which filed an amicus brief, urging the Ninth Circuit to decide this case—and all other retroactivity cases—based on the Supreme Court’s Landgraf framework. Although it dispensed with the Court’s earlier “clarifying legislation” exception, the en banc panel simply shifted its “clarifying” analysis to a new “third” step in the Landgraf analysis purporting to consider congressional intent. WLF’s amicus brief was prepared with the generous pro bono assistance of Joshua M. Wesneski and Sydney Hargrove of Weil, Gotshall & Manges LLP.