2nd Set of Petitioners Urges SCOTUS to ‘Seize the Opportunity’ and Overrule Chevron

The Constitution vests all judicial power in the Article III courts, yet the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1984 Chevron decision holds that courts “must abdicate their independent judgment” and defer to federal agencies’ “interpretation of ambiguous statutes.” So said Relentless, Huntress and Seafreeze Fleet, the second set of petitioners urging SCOTUS to undo Chevron, in their opening brief Monday (docket 22-1219).

Courts must defer to federal agencies even when they believe that their own interpretation “more faithfully reflects the statute’s original meaning and congressional intent,” said the brief. The Chevron "deference doctrine" is "deeply flawed and should be overruled,” it said.

The Commerce Department respondents’ brief is due Dec. 15, and the Relentless petitioners’ reply brief is due Jan. 15. That’s only 12 days before SCOTUS holds oral argument “in tandem” with Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (docket 22-451), the other case in which petitioners urge SCOTUS to undo Chevron. SCOTUS has ordered that all amicus briefs in the two cases be filed simultaneously in both dockets.

Just as the petitioners in Loper Bright warned of the harms due to Chevron, the Relentless petitioners believe Chevron “directly interferes with judges’ Article III duty to apply their own independent judgment when saying what the law is,” said their brief. The Constitution makes judges “independent of the political branches” precisely because their core function “is fundamentally distinct from making policy choices,” it said.

Applying independent judgment requires judges to consider the text, history, purpose and precedent of the federal law at hand, and “to faithfully give effect to what they determine is the best interpretation of that law,” said the brief. The Administrative Procedure Act reinforces that “constitutional obligation,” but Chevron “traduces” it, it said.

The doctrine compels courts to abandon their own independent judgment and interpret ambiguous statutes “by instead deferring to the agency’s policy-driven assertions of what the law should be,” said the brief. Chevron also violates “constitutional due process of law,” it said.

That's because it’s “patently unfair” for a court to defer to an agency’s interpretation “in cases where the agency itself is a litigant, before that same court, in the actual case at hand,” said the brief. The petitioners are three fishing companies challenging the Commerce Department’s mandate that makes them pay the salaries of federal inspectors they’re required to carry onboard their vessels.

Doing so “empowers the agency to act as judge in its own case and deprives citizens challenging official action of the right to adjudication by an impartial decisionmaker,” said the brief. That violates the Constitution, it said. Judges are supposed to be “impartial arbiters” of law, not “home-team umpires” for the executive branch, it said.

The government’s asserted defenses of Chevron can’t “overcome these defects,” said the brief. The argument that Congress has “impliedly delegated” interpretive authority to federal agencies “rests on a widely acknowledged fiction,” it said. It also “conflates” judicial interpretive authority, which can never be delegated, with “mere policymaking,” it said.

Judges regularly apply their own best legal judgment when interpreting ambiguous constitutional or statutory provisions in other contexts, and they aren’t “making policy when doing so,” said the brief. They can and should take the same approach when interpreting statutes governing federal agencies, it said.

The government’s stare decisis defense (to stand by things decided) of Chevron “is equally flawed,” said the brief. Stare decisis “typically promotes” stability, consistency and the rule of law, it said. But Chevron, by its very nature, “undermines these values,” it said. It allows agencies “to unilaterally redefine the meaning of federal law and forces courts to rubberstamp their decisions,” it said. Chevron “thus creates instability and inconsistency,” replacing the rule of law with rule by “agency fiat,” it said.

This case exemplifies the “many flaws” of Chevron, said the brief. Here, the Commerce Department “unilaterally imposed massive costs” on commercial New England fishing companies, including the petitioners, “making them pay for federal agents performing federal functions on their vessels,” it said. It did so without any “explicit authority” in the relevant statute, the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which elsewhere specifically sets forth “the limited circumstances in which such cost-shifting is permitted,” it said.

The district court and the 1st U.S. Circuit Appeals Court nevertheless applied Chevron "to uphold the agency’s implausible and self-serving interpretation,” said the brief. SCOTUS “should seize the opportunity” to overturn Chevron, “and restore the proper role of Article III courts in saying what the law is,” it said. SCOTUS should then apply its “independent judgment,” and set aside Commerce’s “unlawful cost-shifting regulation,” it said.