Does a state court override a procedural decision in a pending case by denying a litigant a hearing in the pending case?

The distinction respondent draws is one of degree and does not alter our fundamental inquiry. "When a state court overrules a consistent line of procedural decisions with the retroactive effect of denying a litigant a hearing in a pending case, it thereby deprives him of due process of law 'in [205 Cal.App.3d 522] its primary sense of opportunity to be heard and to defend [his] substantive right.' [Citation.] When a similarly unforeseeable state-court construction of a criminal statute is applied retroactively to subject a person to criminal liability for past conduct, the effect is to deprive him of due process of law in the sense of fair warning that his contemplated conduct constitutes a crime." (Bouie v. Columbia, supra, 378 U.S. at pp. 354-355, 84 S.Ct. at p. 1703.)