Law Commons^™

Loper Bright And The Future Of Chevron Deference, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

The question presented in Loper Bright Industries v. Raimondo¹ is “[w]hether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.” The Court denied certiorari on another question focused on the merits of the case,² indicating that at least four of the Justices are anxious to revisit or at least clarify Chevron. It’s about time, although it’s far from certain that the Court will actually follow through with the promise the certiorari grant indicates.^{3 …}

Requiring The Executive To Turn Square Corners: The Supreme Court Increases Agency Accountability In Department Of Homeland Security V. Regents Of The University Of California, Claudia J. Bernstein

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Administrative agencies frequently promulgate rules that have dramatic effects on peoples’ lives. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) is one such example. DACA grants certain unlawful immigrants a temporary reprieve from deportation, as well as ancillary benefits such as work permits. In 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) sought to rescind DACA on the basis that the program violates the Immigration and Nationality Act.

This Comment analyzes the recent Supreme Court decision about DACA’s recission in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of University of California. In rejecting DHS’s attempt to rescind DACA, the Court strengthened agency accountability …

Gundy V. United States: How Justice Gorsuch’S Dissent And Changing Judicial Philosophy In Federal Courts May Lead To A Revived Nondelegation Doctrine And Diminish The Purpose Of The Administrative Procedure Act, Zachary Pfrang Olvera

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Strategic Institutional Positioning: How We Have Come To Generate Environmental Law Without Congress, Donald J. Kochan

Texas A&M Law Review

The administrative state has emerged as a pervasive machine that has become the dominate generator of legal rules—despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution commits the legislative power to Congress alone. When examining legislation authorizing administrative agencies to promulgate rules, we are often left asking whether Congress “dele- gates” away its lawmaking authority by giving agencies too much power and discretion to decide what rules should be promulgated and to determine how rich to make their content. If the agencies get broad authority, it is not too hard to understand why they would fulsomely embrace the grant to its fullest. …

Chevron In The Circuit Courts, Kent Barnett, Christopher J. Walker

Michigan Law Review

This Article presents findings from the most comprehensive empirical study to date on how the federal courts of appeals have applied Chevrondeference— the doctrine under which courts defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that it administers. Based on 1,558 agency interpretations the circuit courts reviewed from 2003 through 2013 (where they cited Chevron), we found that the circuit courts overall upheld 71% of interpretations and applied Chevrondeference 77% of the time. But there was nearly a twenty-five-percentage-point difference in agency-win rates when the circuit courts applied Chevrondeference than when they did …

Thin Rationality Review, Jacob Gersen, Adrian Vermeule

Michigan Law Review

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, courts review and set aside agency action that is “arbitrary [and] capricious.” In a common formulation of rationality review, courts must either take a “hard look” at the rationality of agency decisionmaking, or at least ensure that agencies themselves have taken a hard look. We will propose a much less demanding and intrusive interpretation of rationality review—a thin version. Under a robust range of conditions, rational agencies have good reason to decide in a manner that is inaccurate, nonrational, or arbitrary. Although this claim is seemingly paradoxical or internally inconsistent, it simply rests on an …

The Supreme Assimilation Of Patent Law, Peter Lee

Michigan Law Review

Although tensions between universality and exceptionalism apply throughout law, they are particularly pronounced in patent law, a field that deals with highly technical subject matter. This Article explores these tensions by investigating an underappreciated descriptive theory of Supreme Court patent jurisprudence. Significantly extending previous scholarship, it argues that the Court’s recent decisions reflect a project of eliminating “patent exceptionalism” and assimilating patent doctrine to general legal principles (or, more precisely, to what the Court frames as general legal principles). Among other motivations, this trend responds to rather exceptional patent doctrine emanating from the Federal Circuit in areas as varied as …

The Nlrb, The Courts, The Administrative Procedures Act, And Chevron: Now And Then, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Decisions of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), like those of other administrative agencies, are subject to review by the federal judiciary. Standards of review have evolved over time. The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 provides that administrative decisions must be in accord with law and required procedure, not arbitrary or capricious, not contrary to constitutional rights, within an agency's statutory jurisdiction, and supported by substantial evidence. In practice, more attention is paid to two Supreme Court decisions, Skidmore (1944) and Chevron (1984). For many years Chevron seemed the definitive test. A court must follow a clear intent of Congress, …

The Puzzling Presumption Of Reviewability, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

The presumption in favor of judicial review of agency action is a cornerstone of administrative law, accepted by courts and commentators alike as both legally appropriate and obviously desirable. Yet the presumption is puzzling. As with any canon of statutory construction that serves a substantive end, it should find a source in history, positive law, the Constitution, or sound policy considerations. None of these, however, offers a plausible justification for the presumption. As for history, the sort of judicial review that the presumption favors - appellate-style arbitrariness review - was not only unheard of prior to the twentieth century, but …

The Puzzling Presumption Of Reviewability, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

The presumption in favor of judicial review of agency action is a cornerstone of administrative law, accepted by courts and commentators alike as both legally appropriate and obviously desirable. Yet the presumption is puzzling. As with any canon of statutory construction that serves a substantive end, it should find a source in history, positive law, the Constitution, or sound policy considerations. None of these, however, offers a plausible justification for the presumption. As for history, the sort of judicial review that the presumption favors - appellate-style arbitrariness review - was not only unheard of prior to the twentieth century, but …

Towards Tribal Sovereignty And Judicial Efficiency: Ordering The Defenses Of Tribal Sovereign Immunity And Exhaustion Of Tribal Remedies, Kirsten Matoy Carlson

Michigan Law Review

In 1985, the Narragansett Indian Tribe ("Tribe") created the Narragansett Indian Wetuornuck Housing Authority ("Authority"). The Authority, which acts on the Tribe's behalf in its housing development and operations, entered into a contract with the Ninigret Development Corporation for the construction of a low-income housing development. After construction began, disputes developed over how to proceed with the construction. When conciliation efforts failed, the Authority cancelled the contract. The Narragansett Tribal Council, the governing body of the Tribe, followed the forum selection clause in the contract and notified the disputants that it would hold a hearing to resolve the dispute. Ninigret …

On The Constitutional Status Of The Administrative Agencies, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

No abstract provided.

Interstate Commerce Commission V. American Trucking Associations, Inc.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review And The President's Statutory Powers, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

No abstract provided.

Mr. Justice Powell's Standing, Gary C. Leedes

University of Richmond Law Review

Some may lament the results of Mr. Justice Powell's attempts to clarify the law of standing. Indeed, public interest lawyers who advocate granting standing on a surrogate basis to individuals who are members of a large unorganized class of diffuse interests have cause to complain about a return to a more orthodox conception of standing. However, Mr. Justice Powell has a different outlook, viz., in a democratic society, a federal court is not necessarily an appropriate or the most effective institution to redress the grievances of people upset by alleged lawless government action.

Federal Agency Investigations: Procedural Rights Of The Subpoenaed Witness, Frank C. Newman

Michigan Law Review

This article is designed to help fill a gap in the literature and to warn government attorneys, particularly, about some questionable asides in the Hannah case. We shall not deal with record-keeping requirements or with agency inspections, subpoenas duces tecum, and related search and seizure problems. The focus instead is on the subpoenaed witness; that is, a man who knows that force may be used against him unless pursuant to government command he appears and answers questions. We examine several rights that may protect the witness; and we shall also ask whether the agencies, to discharge their governmental duties, truly …

Administrative Law - Judicial Control - Appellate Review Of Federal Trade Commission Proceedings, David A. Nelson S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

During its forty-five year life the Federal Trade Commission has gone through some difficult periods to emerge today as one of the fundamental instrumentalities of government in the regulation of business. Its vast powers and influence, well known to lawyers, will not be explored here. Rather, the purpose of this comment is to appraise the extent of control which the judiciary now exercises over the commission in its adjudicative functions, so as to offer some indication to the practitioner of the probabilities regarding the outcome of judicial review on an appeal beyond the full commission. The approach to be used …

Gray Vs. Powell And The Scope Of Review, Bernard Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

In dissenting from the decision of the Supreme Court in a celebrated administrative-law case, Justice Jackson once declared: "I give up. Now I realize fully what Mark Twain meant when he said, 'The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.' " It cannot be denied that the learned justice's reaction is one which is often felt by students of Supreme Court jurisprudence. This has been particularly true of the field involved in the case which called forth Justice Jackson's plaint--i.e., that of administrative law. American administrative lawyers have not infrequently had this same response to decisions of …