Cracks in the Façade—Supreme Court to Reconsider “Auer Deference” Rule and Possibly Shrink Agency Leeway In Interpreting Regulations

The playing field in a lawsuit challenging agency action is tilted toward the agency, largely by means of various deference doctrines. One of the most important has been deference to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations. Courts have been deferring to those interpretations for decades, following a 1940s Supreme Court case, Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co.[1] The ground really shifted in 1997, when in Auer v. Robbins,[2] the Supreme Court…