Roberts strikes again!The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to overturn a decision that gives power to federal agencies to interpret their own regulations.
In a decision by Justice Elena Kagan on Wednesday, the Supreme Court refused to overturn the 1997 decision that established so-called Auer deference. Kagan emphasized, however, that the principle has its limits.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. supplied a critical fifth vote for sections of Kagan’s opinion upholding precedent and outlining limits on Auer deference. Joining Kagan’s opinion in full were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
Auer deference was established in the 1997 decision Auer v. Robbins, which held that courts should defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
“Auer deference retains an important role in construing agency regulations,” Kagan wrote. “But even as we uphold it, we reinforce its limits. Auer deference is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not. Whether to apply it depends on a range of considerations.”
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said Kagan’s opinion had imposed so many limits on Auer deference that “the doctrine emerges maimed and enfeebled—in truth, zombified.” He and three conservative justices who joined his opinion all or in part would have overturned the Auer decision altogether.
The petitioner in the case before the court is James Kisor, a Marine veteran seeking disability benefits for his post-traumatic stress disorder. The Department of Veterans Affairs agreed that Kisor has PTSD, but it refused to grant retroactive benefits based on its interpretation of the term relevant in agency regulations on late appeals of denied claims.
So when BATFEZQ upholds that a piece of plastic is a machine gun....SCOTUS will dutifully nod...