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Differentiating Deference, Anya Bernstein

Journal Articles

When an administrative agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statutory term is challenged in court, the Chevron doctrine instructs judges to evaluate whether it is reasonable. But how does a court know reasonableness when it sees it? Here, I first show that reasonableness review is more complex than it might seem. Contrary to common images, for instance, courts do not determine a range of reasonable interpretations; and that is a good thing, because they are not competent to do so. Moreover, because traditional statutory interpretation approaches presume the existence of one correct meaning for a given word, they are not well …