Law Commons^™

Longstanding Agency Interpretations, Anita S. Krishnakumar

Faculty Publications

How much deference — or what kind — should courts give to longstanding agency interpretations of statutes? Surprisingly, courts and scholars lack a coherent answer to this question. Legal scholars long have assumed that longstanding agency statutory interpretations are treated with heightened deference on judicial review, and federal courts sometimes have made statements suggesting that this is the case. But in practice, federal court review of longstanding agency interpretations — at both the Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court levels — turns out to be surprisingly erratic. Reviewing courts sometimes note the longevity of an agency’s statutory interpretation …