author: CHIEF Justice Rehnquist

text:
    RYDER v. UNITED STATES
    No. 94-431.
    Argued April 18, 1995
    Decided June 12, 1995

      Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

      Allen Lotz argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner. With him on the briefs were G. Arthur Robbins and Alan B. Morrison.

      Deputy Solicitor General Wallace argued the cause for the United States. On the brief were Solicitor General

      Days, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, Malcolm L. Stewart, and Paul M. Geier.

   CHIEF Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner, an enlisted member of the United States Coast Guard, challenges his conviction by a court-martial. His conviction was affirmed first by the Coast Guard Court of Military Review, and then by the United States Court of Military Appeals. The latter court agreed with petitioner that the two civilian judges who served on the Court of Military Review had not been appointed in accordance with the dictates of the Appointments Clause, U. S. Const., Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, but nonetheless held that the actions of those judges were valid de facto. We hold that the judges’ actions were not valid de facto.

Petitioner was convicted of several drug offenses, and was sentenced by a general court-martial to five years’ confinement (later reduced to three years), forfeiture of pay, reduction in grade, and a dishonorable discharge. He appealed to the Coast Guard Court of Military Review, which, except in one minor aspect, affirmed his conviction. 34 M. J. 1077 (1992). On request for rehearing, petitioner challenged the composition of that court as violative of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution because two of the judges on the three-judge panel were civilians appointed by the General Counsel of the Department of Transportation. The court granted rehearing and rejected this challenge. 34 M. J. 1259 (1992).

The Court of Military Appeals likewise affirmed petitioner’s conviction, 39 M. J. 454 (1994), although it agreed with petitioner that the appellate judges on the Coast Guard Court of Military Review had been appointed in violation of the Appointments Clause. The court relied for this conclusion on its previous decision in United States v. Carpenter, 37 M. J. 291 (1993), where it had decided that appellate military judges are inferior officers whose service requires appointment by a President, a court of law, or a head of a department. U. S. Const., Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. Despite finding a constitutional violation in the appointment of two judges on petitioner’s three-judge appellate panel, the Court of Military Appeals affirmed his conviction on the ground that the actions of these judges were valid defacto, citing Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976) (per curiam). We granted certiorari. 513 U. S. 1071 (1995).

The defacto officer doctrine confers validity upon acts performed by a person acting under the color of official title even though it is later discovered that the legality of that person’s appointment or election to office is deficient. Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U. S. 425, 440 (1886). “The de facto doctrine springs from the fear of the chaos that would result from multiple and repetitious suits challenging every action taken by every official whose claim to office could be open to question, and seeks to protect the public by insuring the orderly functioning of the government despite technical defects in title to office.” 63A Am. Jur. 2d, Public Officers and Employees § 578, pp. 1080-1081 (1984) (footnote omitted). The doctrine has been relied upon by this Court in several cases involving challenges by criminal defendants to the authority of a judge who participated in some part of the proceedings leading to their conviction and sentence.

In Ball v. United States, 140 U. S. 118 (1891), a Circuit Judge assigned a District Judge from the Western District of Louisiana to sit in the Eastern District of Texas as a replacement for the resident judge who had fallen ill and who later died. The assigned judge continued to sit until the successor to the deceased judge was duly appointed. The assigned judge had sentenced Ball after the resident judge had died, and Ball made no objection at that time. Ball later moved in arrest of judgment challenging the sentence imposed upon him by the assigned judge after the death of the resident judge, but this Court held that the assigned judge “was judge de facto if not de jure, and his acts as such are not open to collateral attack.” Id., at 128-129.

Similarly, in McDowell v. United States, 159 U. S. 596 (1895), a Circuit Judge assigned a judge from the Eastern District of North Carolina to sit as a District Judge in the District of South Carolina until a vacancy in the latter district was filled. McDowell was indicted and convicted during the term in which the assigned judge served, but made no objection at the time of his indictment or trial. He later challenged the validity of his conviction because of a claimed error in the assigned judge’s designation. This Court decided that the assigned judge was a “judge de facto,” and that “his actions as such, so far as they affect third persons, are not open to question.” Id., at 601. The Court further observed that McDowell’s claim “presents a mere matter of statutory construction .... It involves no trespass upon the executive power of appointment.” Id., at 598. In a later case, Ex parte Ward, 173 U. S. 452 (1899), petitioner sought an original writ of habeas corpus to challenge the authority of the District Judge who had sentenced him on the grounds that the appointment of the judge during a Senate recess was improper. This Court held that “the title of a person acting with color of authority, even if he be not a good officer in point of law, cannot be collaterally attacked.” Id., at 456.

In the case before us, petitioner challenged the composition of the Coast Guard Court of Military Review while his case was pending before that court on direct review. Unlike the defendants in Ball, McDowell, and Ward, petitioner raised his objection to the judges’ titles before those very judges and prior to their action on his case. And his claim is based on the Appointments Clause of Article II of the Constitution — a claim that there has been a “trespass upon the executive power of appointment,” McDowell, supra, at 598, rather than a misapplication of a statute providing for the assignment of already appointed judges to serve in other districts.

In Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at 125, we said “[t]he Appointments Clause could, of course, be read as merely dealing with etiquette or protocol in describing ‘Officers of the United States’ but the drafters had a less frivolous purpose in mind.” The Clause is a bulwark against one branch aggrandizing its power at the expense of another branch, but it is more: it “preserves another aspect of the Constitution’s structural integrity by preventing the diffusion of the appointment power.” Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868, 878 (1991). In Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U. S. 530 (1962), we declined to invoke the de facto officer doctrine in order to avoid deciding a question arising under Article III of the Constitution, saying that the cases in which we had relied on that doctrine did not involve “basic constitutional protections designed in part for the benefit of litigants.” Id., at 536 (plurality opinion). We think that one who makes a timely challenge to the constitutional validity of the appointment of an officer who adjudicates his case is entitled to a decision on the merits of the question and whatever relief may be appropriate if a violation indeed occurred. Any other rule would create a disincentive to raise Appointments Clause challenges with respect to questionable judicial appointments.

The Court of Military Appeals relied, not without reason, on our decision in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976). There, plaintiffs challenged the appointment of the Federal Election Commission members on separation-of-powers grounds. The Court agreed with them and held that the appointment of four members of the Commission by Congress, rather than the President, violated the Appointments Clause. It nonetheless quite summarily held that the “past acts of the Commission are therefore accorded defacto validity.” Id., at 142. We cited as authority for this determination Connor v. Williams, 404 U. S. 549, 550-551 (1972), in which we held that legislative acts performed by legislators held to have been elected in accordance with an unconstitutional apportionment were not therefore void.

Neither Buckley nor Connor explicitly relied on the de facto officer doctrine, though the result reached in each case validated the past acts of public officials. But in Buckley, the constitutional challenge raised by the plaintiffs was decided in their favor, and the declaratory and injunctive relief they sought was awarded to them. And Connor, like other voting rights cases, see Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 572 (1969); Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701 (1969) (per curiam), did not involve a defect in a specific officer’s title, but rather a challenge to the composition of an entire legislative body. The Court assumed, arguendo, that an equal protection violation infected the District Court’s reapportionment plan, declined to invalidate the elections that had already occurred, and reserved judgment on the propriety of the prospective relief requested by petitioners pending completion of further District Court proceedings that could rectify any constitutional violation present in the court-ordered redistricting plan. Connor, supra, at 550-551. To the extent these civil cases may be thought to have implicitly applied a form of the de facto officer doctrine, we are not inclined to extend them beyond their facts.

The Government alternatively defends the decision of the Court of Military Appeals on the grounds that it was, for several reasons, proper for that court to give its decision in Carpenter — holding that the appointment of the civilian judges to the Coast Guard Court of Military Review violated the Appointments Clause — prospective application only. It first argues that the Court of Military Appeals exercised remedial discretion pursuant to Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97 (1971). But whatever the continuing validity of Chevron Oil after Harper v. Virginia Dept. of Taxation, 509 U. S. 86 (1993), and Reynoldsville Casket Co. v. Hyde, 514 U. S. 749 (1995), there is not the sort of grave disruption or inequity involved in awarding retrospective relief to this petitioner that would bring that doctrine into play. The parties agree that the defective appointments of the civilian judges affect only between 7 to 10 cases pending on direct review. As for the Government’s concern that a flood of habeas corpus petitions will ensue, precedent provides little basis for such fears. Ex parte Ward, 173 U. S. 452 (1899).

Nor does the Government persuade us that the inquiry into clearly established law as it pertains to qualified immunity counsels in favor of discretion to deny a remedy in this case. Qualified immunity specially protects public officials from the specter of damages liability for judgment calls made.in a legally uncertain environment. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 806 (1982) (“[0]ur decisions consistently have held that government officials are entitled to some form of immunity from suits for damages” (emphasis added)). Providing relief to a claimant raising an Appointments Clause challenge does not subject public officials to personal damages that represent a “potentially disabling threa[t] of liability,” but only invalidates actions taken pursuant to defective title. The qualified immunity doctrine need not be extended to protect public officials from such attacks.

Similarly, the practice of denying criminal defendants an exclusionary remedy from Fourth Amendment violations when those errors occur despite the good faith of the Government actors, United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897 (1984), does not require the affirmance of petitioner’s conviction in this case. Finding the deterrent remedy of suppression not compelled by the Fourth Amendment, id., at 910, that case specifically relied on the “objectionable collateral consequence of [the] interference with the criminal justice system’s truth-finding function” in requiring a blanket exclusionary-remedy for all violations, id., at 907, and the relative ineffectiveness of such remedy to deter future Fourth Amendment violations in particular cases, id., at 918-921. No similar collateral consequence arises from rectifying an Appointments Clause violation, and correcting Appointments Clause violations in cases such as this one provides a suitable incentive to make such challenges.

The Government finally suggests that the Court of Military Appeals applied something akin to a harmless-error doctrine in affirming petitioner’s conviction, refusing to redress the violation because petitioner suffered no adverse consequences from the composition of the court. Brief for United States 38. The Government did not argue below that the error, assuming it occurred, was harmless, and there is no indication from the Court of Military Appeals’ summary disposition of this issue that it determined that no harm occurred in this case. We therefore need not address whether the alleged defects in the composition of petitioner’s appellate panel are susceptible to harmless-error review. The Government also argues, at least obliquely, that whatever defect there may have been in the proceedings before the Coast Guard Court of Military Review was in effect cured by the review available to petitioner in the Court of Military Appeals. Id., at 24, n. 16. Again, because of the hierarchical nature of sentence review in the system of military courts, we need not address whether this defect is susceptible to the cure envisioned by the Government.

Congress has established three tiers of military courts pursuant to its power “[t]o make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 14. Cases such as the present one are tried before a general court-martial consisting of a military judge and not less than five service members or by a military judge alone. Art. 16(1), UCMJ, 10 U. S. C. §816(1). Four Courts of Military Review (one each for the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Navy-Marine Corps) hear appeals from courts-martial in cases where the approved sentence involves death, dismissal of a commissioned officer, punitive discharge, or confinement for one year or more. Art. 66, UCMJ, 10 U. S. C. § 866(b)(1). These courts, which sit in panels of three or more, exercise de novo review over the factual findings and legal conclusions of the court-martial. Art. 66(c), UCMJ, 10 U. S. C. § 866(c).

The court of last resort in the military justice system is the Court of Military Appeals. Five civilian judges appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate constitute the court. Art. 142, UCMJ, 10 U. S. C. §942 (1988 ed., Supp. V). The court grants review in cases decided by the Courts of Military Review “upon petition of the accused and on good cause shown.” Art. 67, UCMJ, 10 U. S. C. § 867(a) (1988 ed., Supp. V). The scope of review is narrower than the review exercised by the Court of Military Review; so long as there is some competent evidence in the record to establish the elements of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt, the Court of Military Appeals will not reevaluate the facts. United States v. Wilson, 6 M. J. 214 (1979).

Examining the difference in function and authority between the Coast Guard Court of Military Review and the Court of Military Appeals, it is quite clear that the former had broader discretion to review claims of error, revise factual determinations, and revise sentences than did the latter. It simply cannot be said, therefore, that review by the properly constituted Court of Military Appeals gave petitioner all the possibility for relief that review by a properly constituted Coast Guard Court of Military Review would have given him. We therefore hold that the Court of Military Appeals erred in according defacto validity to the actions of the civilian judges of the Coast Guard Court of Military Review. Petitioner is entitled to a hearing before a properly appointed panel of that court. The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

       The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995, Pub. L. 103-337, § 924, 108 Stat. 2831, changed the nomenclature for the military-appellate courts. The previous “Court[s] of Military Review” were rechristened as the “Court[s] of Criminal Appeals” and the previous “United States Court of Military Appeals” was redesignated as the “United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.” We adhere to the former names consistent with all previous proceedings in this ease.

       The Appointments Clause reads in full:
      “[The President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” U. S. Const., Art. II, §2, cl. 2.

       For similar reasons, we do not find instructive the Court’s disposition of petitioner’s challenge in Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50 (1982). The Court declared the broad grant of jurisdiction to Article I bankruptcy courts unconstitutional and applied its decision prospectively only. Id., at 88. But in doing so, it affirmed the judgment of the District Court, which had dismissed petitioner’s bankruptcy action and afforded respondent the relief requested pursuant to its constitutional challenge. Id., at 57. So Northern Pipeline is not a case in which the Court invoked the de facto officer doctrine to deny relief to the party before it and therefore does not support the Government in this case.

       The Government advances a virtual cornucopia of factors more or less peculiar to this case which it says validate the Court of Military Appeals’ exercise of discretion in this case and thus support affirmance. It points to the lack of any. substantial impact that the improper appointments had on petitioner’s appeal, to the lack of any constitutional right to appellate review, and to the deference owed the military and the public interest in avoiding disruption of that system. Brief for United States 22. At oral argument, it also contended that subsequent action taken by the Secretary of Transportation to cure the Appointments Clause error, the fact that petitioner’s underlying claims of error were meritless, and the fact that the civilian judges in this ease had previously served under proper appointments while on active duty were relevant criteria. Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-30, 33-34. The substance, if not the form, of several of these arguments is discussed and rejected in the text. Those that are not discussed are alternative grounds for affirmance which the Government did not raise below, see Answer to Supplement for Petition for Review in No. 68449 (Ct. Mil. App.), pp. 2-4, and which we decline to reach. Jenkins v. Anderson,
        447 U. S. 231, 234-235, n. 1 (1980); FTC v. Grolier Inc., 462 U. S. 19, 23, n. 6 (1983).

       The Court of Military Review “may affirm only such findings of guilty, and the sentence or such part or amount of the sentence, as it finds correct in law and fact and determines, on the basis of the entire record, should be approved. In considering the record, it may weigh the evidence, judge the credibility of witnesses, and determine controverted questions of fact.” Art. 66(c), UCMJ, 10 U. S. C. § 866(c).


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice Stevens

license: Public Domain

text:
    CITY OF MILWAUKEE v. CEMENT DIVISION, NATIONAL GYPSUM CO., et al.
    No. 94-788.
    Argued April 24, 1995
    Decided June 12, 1995

      Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other Members joined, except Breyer, J., who took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

      David A. Strauss argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Grant F. Langley, Rudolph M. Konrad, and Michael Sturley.

      Harney B, Stover, Jr., argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.
   Justice Stevens

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an admiralty case in which the plaintiff’s loss was primarily attributable to its own negligence. The question presented is whether that fact, together with the existence of a genuine dispute over liability, justified the District Court’s departure from the general rule that prejudgment interest should be awarded in maritime collision cases.

f —

Respondents are the owner and the insurers of the E. M. Ford, a ship that sank in Milwaukee’s outer harbor on Christmas Eve 1979. At the time of this disaster, the Ford was berthed in a slip owned by the city of Milwaukee (City). In the course of a severe storm, she broke loose from her moorings, battered against the headwall of the slip, took on water, and sank. She was subsequently raised and repaired.

In 1980 the Ford’s owner, the Cement Division of National Gypsum Co. (National Gypsum), brought suit against the City, invoking the District Court’s admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. The complaint alleged that the City had breached its duty as a wharfinger by assigning the vessel to a berthing slip known to be unsafe in heavy winds and by failing to give adequate warning of hidden dangers in the slip. The plaintiff sought damages of $4.5 million, later increased to $6.5 million. The City denied fault and filed a $250,000 counterclaim for damage to its dock. The City alleged that National Gypsum was negligent in leaving the ship virtually unmanned in winter, with no means aboard for monitoring weather conditions or summoning help.

In 1986 the District Court conducted a 3-week trial on the issue of liability. Finding that both National Gypsum and the City had been negligent, the court determined that the owner bore 96% of the responsibility for the disaster, while the City bore 4% of the fault. Given the disparity in the parties’ damages, a final judgment giving effect to that allocation (and awarding the damages sought in the pleadings) would have essentially left each party to bear its own losses.

Respondents took an interlocutory appeal from the District Court’s ruling. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit agreed with the District Court’s conclusion that both parties were at fault, and that the owner’s negligence was “more egregious” than the City’s, but it rejected the allocation of 96% of the responsibility to the owner as clearly erroneous. Cement Div., National Gypsum Co. v. Milwaukee, 915 F. 2d 1154, 1159 (1990), cert. denied, 499 U. S. 960 (1991). After making its own analysis of the record, the Court of Appeals apportioned liability two-thirds to National Gypsum and one-third to the City. 915 F. 2d, at 1160.

Thereafter the parties entered into a partial settlement fixing respondents’ damages, excluding prejudgment interest, at $1,677,541.86. The parties agreed that any claim for interest would be submitted to the District Court for decision. A partial judgment for the stipulated amount was entered and satisfied.

Respondents then sought an award of over $5.3 million in prejudgment interest. The District Court denied respondents’ request. It noted that “an award of pre judgment interest calculated from the date of the loss is the rule rather than the exception in cases brought under a district court’s admiralty jurisdiction,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 21a, but held that special circumstances justified a departure from that rule in this case. The court explained:

“In the instant case the record shows that from the outset there has been a genuine dispute over [respondents’] good faith claim that the City of Milwaukee was negligent for failing to warn the agents of [National Gypsum] (who were planning to leave the FORD unmanned during the Christmas holidays) that a winter storm could create conditions in the outer harbor at Milwaukee which could damage the ship. The trial court and the court of appeals both found mutual fault for the damage which ensued to the ship and to the [City’s] dock. The court of appeals ascribed two-thirds of the negligence to [National Gypsum]. Thus, in this situation the court concludes that [National Gypsum’s] contributory negligence was of such magnitude that an award of prejudgment interest would be inequitable.” Id., at 22a.

The Court of Appeals reversed. 31 F. 3d 581 (1994). It noted that prior to this Court’s announcement of the comparative fault rule in United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., 421 U. S. 397 (1975), some courts had denied prejudgment interest in order to mitigate the harsh effects of the earlier rule commanding an equal division of damages whenever a collision resulted from the fault of both parties, even though one party was only slightly negligent. In the court’s view, however, after the divided damages rule was “thrown overboard” and replaced with comparative fault, mutual fault could no longer provide a basis for denying prejudgment interest. 31 F. 3d, at 584-585. The Court of Appeals also read our decision in West Virginia v. United States, 479 U. S. 305, 311, n. 3 (1987), as disapproving of a “balancing of the equities” as a method of deciding whether to allow prejudgment interest. 31 F. 3d, at 585.

The Court of Appeals’ decision deepened an existing Circuit split regarding the criteria for denying prejudgment interest, in maritime collision cases. Compare, e.g., Inland Oil & Transport Co. v. Ark-White Towing Co., 696 F. 2d 321 (CA5 1983) (genuine dispute over good-faith claim in mutual fault setting justifies denial of prejudgment interest), with Alkmeon Naviera, S. A. v. M/V Marina L, 633 F. 2d 789 (CA9 1980) (contrary rule). We granted certiorari, 513 U. S. 1072 (1995), and now affirm.

II

Although Congress has enacted a statute governing the award of postjudgment interest in federal court litigation, see 28 U. S. C. § 1961, there is no comparable legislation regarding prejudgment interest. Far from indicating a legislative determination that prejudgment interest should not be awarded, however, the absence of a statute merely indicates that the question is governed by traditional judge-made principles. Monessen Southwestern R. Co. v. Morgan, 486 U. S. 330, 336-337 (1988); Rodgers v. United States, 332 U. S. 371, 373 (1947). Those principles are well developed in admiralty, where “the Judiciary has traditionally taken the lead in formulating flexible and fair remedies.” Reliable Transfer, 421 U. S., at 409.

Throughout our history, admiralty decrees have included provisions for prejudgment interest. In Del Col v. Arnold, 3 Dall. 333, a prize case decided in 1796, we affirmed a decree awarding the libellant interest from “the day of capture.” Id., at 334. In The Amiable Nancy, 3 Wheat. 546 (1818), we considered a similar decree. In augmenting the damages awarded by the lower court, we directed that the additional funds should bear prejudgment interest, as had the damages already awarded by the lower court. Id., at 562-563. The Amiable Nancy arose out of the “gross and wanton” seizure of a Haitian vessel near the island of Antigua by the Scourge, an American privateer. Id., at 546-547, 558. In his opinion for the Court, Justice Story explained that even though the “loss of the supposed profits” of the Amiable Nancy’s voyage was not recoverable, “the prime cost, or value of the property lost, at the time of the loss, and in ease of injury, the diminution in value, by reason of the injury, with interest upon such valuation, afforded the true measure for assessing damages.” Id., at 560 (emphasis added). We applied the same rule in The Umbria, 166 U. S. 404, 421 (1897), explaining that “in cases of total loss by collision damages are limited to the value of the vessel, with interest thereon, and the net freight pending at the time of the collision.” (Emphasis added.)

The Courts of Appeals have consistently and correctly construed decisions such as these as establishing a general rule that prejudgment interest should be awarded in maritime collision cases, subject to a limited exception for “peculiar” or “exceptional” circumstances. See, e. g., Inland Oil & Transport Co., 696 F. 2d, at 327; Central Rivers Towing, Inc. v. Beardstown, 750 F. 2d 565, 574 (CA7 1984); Ohio River Co. v. Peavey Co., 731 F. 2d 547, 549 (CA8 1984); Alkmeon Naviera, 633 F. 2d, at 797; Parker Towing Co. v. Yazoo River Towing, Inc., 794 F. 2d 591, 594 (CA11 1986).

The essential rationale for awarding prejudgment interest is to ensure that an injured party is fully compensated for its loss. Full compensation has long been recognized as a basic principle of admiralty law, where “[rjestitutio in inte-grum is the leading maxim applied by admiralty courts to ascertain damages resulting from a collision.” Standard Oil Co. of N. J. v. Southern Pacific Co., 268 U. S. 146, 158 (1925) (citing The Baltimore, 8 Wall. 377, 885 (1869)). By compensating “for the loss of use of money due as damages from the time the claim accrues until judgment is entered,” West Virginia, 479 U. S., at 310-311, n. 2, an award of prejudgment interest helps achieve the goal of restoring a party to the condition it enjoyed before the injury occurred, The President Madison, 91 F. 2d 835, 845-846 (CA9 1937).

Despite admiralty’s traditional hospitality to prejudgment interest, however, such an award has never been automatic. In The Scotland, 118 U. S. 507, 518-519 (1886), we stated that the “allowance of interest on damages is not an absolute right. Whether it ought or ought not to be allowed depends upon the circumstances of each case, and rests very much in the discretion of the tribunal which has to pass upon the subject, whether it be a court or a jury.” See also The Maggie J. Smith, 123 U. S. 349, 356 (1887). Although we have never attempted to exhaustively catalog the circumstances that will justify the denial of interest, and do not do so today, the most obvious example is the plaintiff’s responsibility for “undue delay in prosecuting the lawsuit.” General Motors Corf. v. Devex Corp., 461 U. S. 648, 657 (1983). Other circumstances may appropriately be invoked as warranted by the facts of particular cases.

In this case, the City asks us to characterize two features of the instant litigation as sufficiently unusual to justify a departure from the general rule that prejudgment interest should be awarded to make the injured party whole. First, the City stresses the fact that there was a good-faith dispute over its liability for respondents’ loss. In our view, however, this fact carries little weight. If interest were awarded as a penalty for bad-faith conduct of the litigation, the City’s argument would be well taken. But prejudgment interest is not awarded as a penalty; it is merely an element of just compensation.

The City’s “good-faith” argument has some resonance with the venerable common-law rule that prejudgment interest is not awarded on unliquidated claims (those where the precise amount of damages at issue cannot be computed). If a party contests liability in good faith, it will usually be the case that the party’s ultimate exposure is uncertain. But the liquidated/unliquidated distinction has faced trenchant criticism for a number of years. Moreover, that distinction “has never become so firmly entrenched in admiralty as it has been at law.” Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. v. Richardson, 295 F. 2d 583, 592 (CA2 1961). Any fixed rule allowing prejudgment interest only on liquidated claims would be difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with admiralty’s traditional presumption. Yet unless we were willing to adopt such a rule — which we are not — uncertainty about the outcome of a case should not preclude an award of interest.

In sum, the existence of a legitimate difference of opinion on the issue of liability is merely a characteristic of most ordinary lawsuits. It is not an extraordinary circumstance that can justify denying prejudgment interest. See Alkmeon Naviera, 633 F. 2d, at 798.

The second purportedly “peculiar” feature of this case is the magnitude of the plaintiff’s fault. Leaving aside the empirical question whether such a division of fault is in fact an aberration, it is true in this case that the owner of the E. M. Ford was primarily responsible for the vessel’s loss. As a result, it might appear somewhat inequitable to award a large sum in prejudgment interest against a relatively innocent party. But any unfairness is illusory, because the relative fault of the parties has already been taken into consideration in calculating the amount of the loss for which the City is responsible.

In United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., 421 U. S. 397 (1975), we “replaced the divided damages rule, which required an equal division of property damage whatever the relative degree of fault may have been, with a rule requiring that damages be assessed on the basis of proportionate fault when such an allocation can reasonably be made.” McDermott, Inc. v. AmClyde, 511 U. S. 202, 207 (1994). Thus, in this case, before prejudgment interest even entered the picture, the total amount of respondents’ recovery had already been reduced by two-thirds because of National Gypsum’s own negligence. The City’s responsibility for the remaining one-third is no different than if it had performed the same negligent acts and the owner, instead of also being negligent, had engaged in heroic maneuvers that avoided two-thirds of the damages. The City is merely required to compensate the owner for the loss for which the City is responsible.

In light of Reliable Transfer, we are unmoved by the City’s contention that an award of prejudgment interest is inequitable in a mutual fault situation. Indeed, the converse is true: a denial of prejudgment interest would be unfair. As Justice Kennedy noted while he was sitting on the Ninth Circuit, “under any rule allowing apportionment of liability, denying prejudgment interest on the basis of mutual fault would seem to penalize a party twice for the same mistake.” Alkmeon Naviera, 633 F. 2d, at 798, n. 12. Such a double penalty is commended neither by logic nor by fairness; the rule giving rise to it is a relic of history that has ceased to serve any purpose in the wake of Reliable Transfer.

Accordingly, we hold that neither a good-faith dispute over liability nor the existence of mutual fault justifies the denial of pre judgment interest in an admiralty collision case. Questions related to the calculation of the prejudgment interest award, including the rate to be applied, have not been raised in this Court and remain open for consideration, in the first instance, by the District Court.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Justice Breyer took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

       “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of: (1) Any civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled.” 28 U. S. C. § 1333(1).

       Such appeals are authorized by 28 U. S. C. § 1292(a)(3), which states:
      “(a) Except as provided in subsections (c) and (d) of this section, the courts of appeals shall have jurisdiction of appeals from: ... (3) Interlocutory decrees of... district courts or the judges thereof determining the rights and liabilities of the parties to admiralty cases in which appeals from final decrees are allowed.”

       In arriving at this sum, the parties agreed that respondents’ damages were slightly more than $5.4 million, while the City’s damages were just over $192,000. The parties multiplied respondents’ damages by one-third, resulting in a subtotal of $1,805,829.98 for which the City was responsible. From this subtotal, the parties subtracted two-thirds of the City’s damages, or $128,288.12, as an offset because that was the amount of National Gypsum’s responsibility. The difference was the City’s obligation to respondents. App. 40-45.

       This figure was based on respondents’ assertion that pre judgment interest should be compounded continuously, from the time of the sinking of the Ford, at the commercial prime rate of interest averaged over the period of assessment. Plaintiff’s Brief on Issue of Prejudgment Interest in No. 80-C-1001 (ED Wis.), pp. 24-26. The District Court did not express any view on the correctness of this analysis, nor do we. We merely note in passing that the discrepancy between the damages award and the interest sought by National Gypsum is in some measure attributable to the delays that have plagued this litigation — a factor that does not appear to be traceable to the fault of any party.

       The District Court also relied on the City’s status as a municipality as an alternative ground for denying prejudgment interest. App. to Pet. for Cert. 22a-23a. The Court of Appeals rejected this portion of the District Court’s analysis as inconsistent with Circuit precedent, and the City did not pursue the argument in this Court.

       See also The Anna Maria, 2 Wheat. 327, 335 (1817) (Marshall, C. J.) (remanding with instructions to ascertain damages suffered by the libel-lants, “in doing which, the value of the vessel, and the prime cost of the cargo, with all charges, and the premium of insurance, where it has been paid, with interest, are to be allowed”) (emphasis added); The Manitoba, 122 U. S. 97, 101 (1887) (approving, in dicta, allowance of “interest on the damages from the date of the collision to the date of the decree”).

       We have recognized the compensatory nature of prejudgment interest in a number of cases decided outside the admiralty context. E. g., West Virginia v. United States, 479 U. S. 305, 310-311, n. 2 (1987); Funkhouser v. J. B. Preston Co., 290 U. S. 163, 168 (1933); Miller v. Robertson, 266 U. S. 243, 257-258 (1924). But cf. Blau v. Lehman, 368 U. S. 403, 414 (1962) (“ ‘interest is not recovered according to a rigid theory of compensation for money withheld, but is given in response to considerations of fairness’ ”) (quoting Board of Comm’rs of Jackson Cty. v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 352 (1939)).

       We do note that, as is always the case when an issue is committed to judicial discretion, the judge’s decision must be supported by a circumstance that has relevance to the issue at hand. See generally Friendly, Indiscretion About Discretion, 31 Emory L. J. 747 (1982).

       “It has been recognized that a distinction, in this respect, simply as between cases of liquidated and unliquidated damages, is not a sound one.” Funkhouser, 290 U. S., at 168 (citing Bernhard v. Rochester German Ins. Co., 79 Conn. 388, 398, 65 A. 134, 137-138 (1906); 1 T. Sedgwick, Measure of Damages § 315 (9th ed. 1912)). See also General Motors Corp. v. Devex Corp., 461 U. S. 648, 665-656, n. 10 (1983); D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies § 3.6(3) (2d ed. 1993); C. McCormick, Law of Damages §§ 51, 54-56 (1935); Rothschild, Prejudgment Interest: Survey and Suggestion, 77 Nw. U. L. Rev. 192 (1982).

       A number of Circuits have rejected its applicability, at least as an absolute bar. E. g., Borges v. Our Lady of the Sea Corp., 935 F. 2d 436, 444 (CA1 1991); Hillier v. Southern Towing Co., 740 F. 2d 683, 586 (CA7 1984), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1190 (1985); Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. v. M/Y La Belle Simone, 537 F. 2d 1201, 1204-1206, and n. 1 (CA4 1976); Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. v. Richardson, 295 F 2d, at 594.

       Indeed, although the amount is relatively small in this case, the City’s counterclaim was resolved under the same principle. Notwithstanding its contributory negligence, the City has been compensated for two-thirds of its cost of repairing the dock and headwall. See n. 3, supra.