Page:United States Reports, Volume 542.djvu/781

742 to formulate federal common law." This rule applies not only to applications of federal common law that would displace a state rule, but also to applications that simply create a private cause of action under a federal statute. Indeed, Texas Industries itself involved the petitioner's unsuccessful request for an application of the latter sort—creation of a right of contribution to damages assessed under the antitrust laws. See id., at 639–646. See also Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. Transport Workers,, 99 (1981) (declining to create a federal common law right of contribution to dam ages assessed under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII).

The rule against ﬁnding a delegation of substantive law-making power in a grant of jurisdiction is subject to exceptions, some better established than others. The most firmly entrenched is admiralty law, derived from the grant of admiralty jurisdiction in Article III, § 2, cl. 3, of the Constitution. In the exercise of that jurisdiction federal courts develop and apply a body of general maritime law, "the well known and well developed venerable law of the sea which arose from the custom among seafaring men." R.M.S. Titanic, Inc. v. Haver, (CA4 1999) (Niemeyer, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted). At the other extreme is Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents,, which created a private damages cause of action against federal ofﬁcials for violation of the Fourth Amendment. We have said that the authority to create this cause of action was derived from "our general jurisdiction to decide all cases 'arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.'" Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko,, 66 (2001) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1331). While Bivens stands, the ground supporting it has eroded. For the past 25 years, "we have consistently refused to extend Bivens liability to any new context." Correctional Services Corp., supra, at 68. Bivens is "a relic of the heady days in which this Court assumed common law powers to create causes of action." 534 U.S., at 75 ({sc|Scalia, J.}}, concurring).