Litigation After The Demise Of Chevron Deference

July 15, 2024 – As widely anticipated, the Supreme Court last month overruled Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,¹ which directed federal courts to defer to an administrative agency's "reasonable" interpretation of ambiguous terms in a Congressional statute authorizing the agency to act. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo,the Court held by a 6-3 vote that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires Article III judges to interpret ambiguities in statutes without regard to reasonable agency interpretations, consistent with the general primacy of Article III courts in declaring and interpreting federal laws. A ringing dissent by Justice Kagan (joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson) decried the dismantling of the modern U.S. administrative state that they asserted the death of Chevron deference would trigger.