You Can Drive Past A Chevron, But No Longer Have To Pull In

Over twenty years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States adopted the so-called Chevron Deference Doctrine in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843 (1984).  The Chevron  Doctrine established that administrative agency construction of statutes is entitled to judicial deference.  In the years that followed, a large number of states adopted the doctrine as applied to their state's law.

As summarized eight years ago by the Mississippi Supreme Court in Rayner v. Barbour, 47 So. 3d 128, 131 (Miss. 2010):

[W]hen a statute is not ambiguous, this Court applies the statute according to its plain meaning and need not apply principles of statutory construction." Barbour v. State ex rel. Hood, 974 So.2d 232, 240 (Miss.2008). But if there is ambiguity, the interpretation afforded by the [state agency] must be upheld if it is "based on a permissible construction of the statute." Id. at 241 (citing Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural