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  • July 03, 2024

    U.S. Supreme Court Overrules Chevron, Term Concludes with 59 Opinions

    The U.S. Supreme Court issued its final decision this week, totaling 59 opinions for the October 2023 Term. Of those, 25 decisions were decided by a 6-3 or 5-4 majority.

    Joe Forward

    US Supreme Court building

    July 3, 2024 – The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision with significant impacts for regulatory attorneys who deal with federal agency regulations. The decision was one of 59 majority or unanimous opinions issued by the court.

    In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (June 28, 2024), a 6-3 majority ruled that courts may not defer to agency interpretations of the law when a statute the agency administers is ambiguous. Instead, courts must exercise independent judgment in determining whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.

    Amy Howe, writing for SCOTUS Blog, said the decision “will likely have far-reaching effects across the country, from environmental regulation to healthcare costs.”

    The ruling overturns Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984). Chevron, decided unanimously (6-0),1 required courts to uphold agency interpretations of the law “if based on a permissible construction of the statute.”

    Joe Forward Joe Forward, Saint Louis Univ. School of Law 2010, is communications director for the State Bar of Wisconsin, Madison. He can be reached by email or by phone at (608) 250-6161.

    Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises, said Chevron was “fundamentally misguided” and “unworkable” because “the concept of ambiguity has always evaded meaningful definition.”

    “One judge might see ambiguity everywhere; another might never encounter it,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “A rule of law that is so wholly ‘in the eye of the beholder’ invites different results in like cases and is therefore ‘arbitrary in practice.’”

    The Wisconsin Supreme Court eliminated deference to state agencies’ conclusions of law six years ago in Tetra Tech EC, Inc. v. Wisconsin Dep’t of Revenue, 2018 WI 75 (2018). At the time, observers commented that the Tetra Tech decision “marks a sea change in Wisconsin administrative law” but thought application may be challenging because the court was “fractured in its reasoning.” Three concurrences were filed.

    In Loper Bright Enterprises, Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, as did Justice Neil Gorsuch. Justice Elena Kagen filed a dissent, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Katanji Brown Jackson (as to one consolidated case).

    Thomas agreed that Chevron should be overruled. He wrote separately “to underscore a more fundamental problem: Chevron deference also violates our Constitution’s separation of powers, as I have previously explained at length.”

    This Just In: Significant 2024 U.S. Supreme Court Decisions

    Learn more about recent significant U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 2024. This 4.5 CLE program from State Bar of Wisconsin PINNACLE® takes place in person Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, 8:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the State Bar Center in Madison; and via webcast on specific dates August through November. Visit WisBar's Marketplace for more information and to reserve your spot.

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    Gorsuch said Chevron’s tombstone “returns judges to interpretive rules that have guided federal courts since the Nation’s founding” and wrote separately “to address why the proper application of the doctrine of stare decisis supports that course.”

    The dissent​ers would have upheld Chevron. “There are no special reasons, of the kind usually invoked for overturning precedent, to eliminate Chevron deference,” wrote Justice Elena Kagen. “And given Chevron’s pervasiveness, the decision to do so is likely to produce large-scale disruption.

    “All that backs today’s decision is the majority’s belief that Chevron was wrong—that it gave agencies too much power and courts not enough.”

    Decisions of the Term (5-4 or 6-3 Decisions)

    ​​

    Case

     

    Decision

     

    Maj. Author

     

    Holding (from the court’s syllabus)

    Trump v. U.S.

     

    5-4

     

    Roberts

     

    Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.

    Dep’t of State v. Muñoz

     

    6-3

     

    Barrett

     

    A citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country.

    Thornell v. Jones

     

    6-3

     

    Alito

     

    On ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation and application of Strickland was in error.

    Fischer v. U.S.

     

    6-3

     

    Roberts

     

    To prove a violation of §1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so.

    Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon, Ohio

     

    6-3

     

    Kagen

     

    The presence of probable cause for one charge in a criminal proceeding does not categorically defeat a Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim relating to another, baseless charge.

    Snyder v. U.S.

     

    6-3

     

    Kananaugh

     

    Section 666 proscribes bribes to state and local officials but does not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts.

    City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson

     

    6-3

     

    Gorsuch

     

    The enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

    Erlinger v. U.S.

     

    6-3

     

    Gorsuch

     

    The Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a unanimous jury to make the determination beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s past offenses were committed on separate occasions for ACCA purposes.

    Becerra v. San Carlos Apache Tribe

     

    5-4

     

    Roberts

     

    ISDA requires IHS to pay the contract support costs that a tribe incurs when it collects and spends program income to further the functions, services, activities, and programs transferred to it from IHS in a self-determination contract.

    Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado

     

    5-4

     

    Jackson

     

    Because the proposed consent decree would dispose of the United States’ Compact claims without its consent, the States’ motion to enter the consent decree is denied.

    Diaz v. U.S.

     

    6-3

     

    Thomas

     

    Expert testimony that “most people” in a group have a particular mental state is not an opinion about “the defendant” and thus does not violate Rule 704(b).

    Murthy v. Missouri

     

    6-3

     

    Barrett

     

    Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established Article III standing to seek an injunction against any defendant.

    Garland v. Cargill

     

    6-3

     

    Thomas

     

    ATF exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies a bump stock as a “machinegun” under §5845(b).

    Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy

     

    6-3

     

    Kagen

     

    The Copyright Act entitles a copyright owner to obtain monetary relief for any timely infringement claim, no matter when the infringement occurred. The Act’s statute of limitations establishes a three-year period for filing suit, which begins to run when a claim accrues (here, the Court assumes without deciding, upon its discovery). That provision establishes no separate three-year limit on recovering damages. If any time limit on damages exists, it must come from the Act’s remedial sections. But those provisions merely state that an infringer is liable either for statutory damages or for the owner’s actual damages and the infringer’s profits. See §504(a)–(c). There is no time limit on monetary recovery. So a copyright owner possessing a timely claim is entitled to damages for infringement, no matter when the infringement occurred.

    Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency

     

    5-4

     

    Gorsuch

     

    The applications for a stay are granted; enforcement of EPA’s rule against the applicants shall be stayed pending the disposition of the applicants’ petition for review in the D. C. Circuit and any petition for writ of certiorari, timely sought.

    Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

     

    6-3

     

    Barrett

     

    An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of §2401(a)’s 6-year statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action.

    Office of the U.S. Trustee v. John Q. Hammons Fall 2006, LLC

     

    6-3

     

    Jackson

     

    Prospective parity is the appropriate remedy for the short-lived and small disparity created by the fee statute held unconstitutional in Siegel.

    Campos-Chaves v. Garland

     

    5-4

     

    Alito

     

    Because each of the aliens in this case received a proper §1229(a)(2) notice for the hearings they missed and at which they were ordered removed, they cannot seek rescission of their in absentia removal orders on the basis of defective notice under §1229a(b)(5)(C)(ii).

    Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P.

     

    5-4

     

    Gorsuch

     

    The bankruptcy code does not authorize a release and injunction that, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11, effectively seek to discharge claims against a nondebtor without the consent of affected claimants.

    Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy

     

    6-3

     

    Roberts

     

    When the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial.

    Wilkinson v. Garland

     

    6-3

     

    Sotomayor

     

    The Third Circuit erred in holding that it lacked jurisdiction to review the IJ’s determination in this case.

    Brown v. U.S.

     

    6-3

     

    Alito

     

    A state drug conviction counts as an ACCA predicate if it involved a drug on the federal schedules at the time of that conviction.

    Culley v. Marshall

     

    6-3

     

    Kavanaugh

     

    In civil forfeiture cases involving personal property, the Due Process Clause requires a timely forfeiture hearing but does not require a separate preliminary hearing.

    Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP

     

    6-3

     

    Alito

     

    The District Court’s finding that race predominated in the design of District I in the Enacted Plan was clearly erroneous.

    Pulsifer v. U.S.

     

    6-3

     

    Kagen

     

    A defendant facing a mandatory minimum sentence is eligible for safety-valve relief under 18 U. S. C. §3553(f)(1) only if he satisfies each of the provision’s three conditions – or said more specifically, only if he does not have more than four criminal-history points, does not have a prior three-point offense, and does not have a prior two-point violent offense.

    Endnotes

    1 Justice Thurgood Marshall, Justice William Rehnquist, and Justice Sandra Day O’Conner did not participate.


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