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Taxes, Administrative Law, And Agency Expertise: Questioning The Orthodoxy, Scott Schumacher

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One of the foundations of administrative law is that federal agencies and their employees are experts in their respective fields. In addition, the many judgments and decisions made by these experts are based on a thorough record after extensive factfinding. As a result, so the theory goes, courts, particularly courts of general jurisdiction like the United States District Courts, should give deference to the determinations made by these experts. But what if the facts underpinning this foundation are not true in all cases? Should courts nevertheless provide deference to decisions by agencies when it is evident that an agency's determinations …

A Functional Approach To Judicial Review Of Ptab Rulings On Mixed Questions Of Law And Fact, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

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The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) has long relied on active appellate review to bring uniformity and clarity to patent law. It initially treated the PTO the same as the federal district courts, reviewing its factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Following reversal by the Supreme Court in Dickinson v. Zurko, the Federal Circuit began giving greater deference to PTO factual findings. But it continued to review the PTO’s legal conclusions de novo, while coding an expansive list of disputed issues in patent cases as legal conclusions, even when they …

Reflections On Seminole Rock: The Past, Present, And Future Of Deference To Agency Regulatory Interpretations, Amy J. Wildermuth, Sanne H. Knudsen

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Seminole Rock (or Auer) deference has captured the attention of scholars, policymakers, and the judiciary. That is why Notice & Comment, the blog of the Yale Journal on Regulation and the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice, hosted an online symposium from September 12 to September 23, 2016 on the subject. This symposium contains over 20 contributions addressing different aspects of Seminole Rock deference.

Unearthing The Lost History Of Seminole Rock, Sanne H. Knudsen, Amy J. Wildermuth

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This Article documents the untethering of Bowles v. Seminole Rock [325 U.S. 410 (1945)]. It shows how, in the 1960s and 1970s, alongside an expanding administrative state, the doctrine transformed into a more mechanical and highly deferential form of agency deference. It further shows that this transformation is marked by a consistent lack of scholarly or judicial reflection on its underpinnings.

In doing so, this Article provides new depth to the emerging critiques of Seminole Rock deference and lends critical support for reexamination of the doctrine.

Unearthing The Lost History Of Seminole Rock, Amy J. Wildermuth, Sanne H. Knudsen

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In 1945, the Supreme Court blessed a lesser known type of agency deference in Bowles v. Seminole Rock. Also known as Auer deference, it affords deference to agency interpretations of their own regulations. Courts regularly defer to agencies under this doctrine, regardless of where the interpretations first appear or how long-standing they are. Recently members of the Supreme Court have signaled a willingness to reconsider, and perhaps jettison, Seminole Rock. We agree. Seminole Rock has been widely accepted but surprisingly disconnected from any analysis of its origins and justifications. This Article — the first historical explication of Seminole …

Lessons From The Lost History Of Seminole Rock, Sanne H. Knudsen, Amy J. Wildermuth

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This Article informs the current debate over Auer v. Robbins (519 U.S. 452 (1997)) deference by exploring the roots of the Bowles v. Seminole Rock decision (325 U.S. 410 (1945)) and its subsequent reinterpretation through a creative approach. To do so, this Article offers a series of hypothetical opinions applying the various historical interpretations of Seminole Rock to a single set of facts.

Part I places Seminole Rock in the constellation of deference doctrines in administrative law so that one can easily understand what the doctrine is and when it applies. Part II examines the transformation of Seminole Rock through …

Big (Gay) Love: Has The Irs Legalized Polygamy?, Anthony C. Infanti

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Within days in December, a federal judge in Utah made news by loosening that state’s criminal prohibition against polygamy and the Attorney General of North Dakota made news by opining that a party to a same-sex marriage could enter into a different-sex marriage in that state without first obtaining a divorce or annulment. Both of these opinions raised the specter of legalized plural marriage. What discussions of these opinions missed, however, is the possibility that the IRS might already have legalized plural marriage in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last June in United States v. Windsor, which …

From Chevron To Massachusetts: Justice Stevens's Approach To Securing The Public Interest, Kathryn A. Watts

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During the past three decades, one Supreme Court justice— John Paul Stevens—has authored two of the most significant administrative law decisions that speak to the judiciary’s role in checking agency interpretations of the statutes that they administer. In Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Justice Stevens’s landmark 1984 decision unanimously upheld the EPA’s construction of a term found in the Clean Air Act. Subsequently, in Massachusetts v. EPA, Justice Stevens’s 2007 opinion for a five-justice majority handed a major win to global environmental security by ordering the EPA to reconsider its refusal to regulate greenhouse …

A Presumption Against Agency Preemption, Nina A. Mendelson

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Federal agencies are increasingly taking aim at state law, even though state law is not expressly targeted by the statutes the agencies administer. Starting in 2001, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued several notices saying that state laws would apply to national bank operating subsidiaries (incorporated under state law) to the same extent as those laws applied to the parent national bank. In 2003, the OCC specifically mentioned state consumer protection laws and took the position that the state laws were preempted and did not apply to mortgage lenders owned by national banks. In December 2006, …

The California Greenhouse Gas Waiver Decision And Agency Interpretation: A Response To Galle And Seidenfeld, Nina A. Mendelson

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Professors Brian Galle and Mark Seidenfeld add some important strands to the debate on agency preemption, particularly in their detailed documentation of the potential advantages agencies may possess in deliberating on preemption compared with Congress and the courts. As they note, the quality of agency deliberation matters to two different debates. First, should an agency interpretation of statutory language to preempt state law receive Chevron deference in the courts, as other agency interpretations may, or should some lesser form of deference be given? Second, should a general statutory authorization to an agency to administer a program and to issue rules …

Chevron And Preemption, Nina A. Mendelson

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This Article takes a more functional approach to reconciling preemption doctrine with Chevron when Congress has not expressly delegated preemptive authority to an agency, an approach that considers a variety of concerns, including political accountability, institutional competence, and related concerns. The Article assumes that federalism values, such as ensuring core state regulatory authority and autonomy, are important and can be protected through political processes." It argues that although Congress's "regional structure" might hint at great sensitivity to state concerns, it actually may lead Congress to undervalue some federalism benefits that are more national in nature. Meanwhile, executive agencies generally have …

Authority And Responsibility: The Jurisprudence Of Deference, Joseph Vining

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he connection between authority and responsibility is such that the one cannot be thought of without the other. In legal method, close reading and rereading of a text marks it as an authoritative text; the presupposition of mind which is necessary to close reading is presupposition of a responsible mind. In the working of institutions that embody authority, the disposition to follow the decisions and statements of a person responsible for a matter inevitably rests upon a presupposition that the decisions and statements followed are those of the responsible person. As that presupposition fades with bureaucratization of decision and writing, …

Direct Judicial Review And The Doctrine Of Ripeness In Administrative Law, Joseph Vining

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There has been recent interest in rationalizing and codifying the opportunities for judicial review of federal administrative determinations outside an enforcement context or special proceedings designated by statute. Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner culminated the development of a strong judicial presumption in favor of such review, founded in general considerations and justified by the broad language of the Administrative Procedure Act (AP A or Act). Since the petitioners in Abbott had theoretical rights to later review of the agency position in enforcement proceedings, the Court called the procedure "pre-enforcement" review. But similar opportunities for immediate and direct review of agency positions …