Prof. Kristin Hickman Quoted in Bloomberg Law About Appeals Court Rulings One Year After Chevron Deference Overturned

Professor Kristin Hickman, associate dean for research & intellectual life, was quoted in Bloomberg Law about how federal appeals courts are still figuring out how much weight to give to agencies’ views of their legal authority, a year after the U.S, Supreme Court said judges must interpret relevant laws. The justices in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo swept away the longstanding Chevron doctrine, under which courts had deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. But the high court left in place an even older precedent calling on courts to give weight to an agency’s position to the extent that it’s persuasive. In the year since the Supreme Court ruled, circuit courts have started going in different directions on the level of deference judges should grant agencies under the older case, 1944’s Skidmore v. Swift & Co. At stake is how much clout agencies will have in the post-Chevron era to defend their actions against legal challenges. Prof. Hickman said two U.S. Court of Appeals have had opposing views in their rulings. She said, “The lower courts aren’t certain what to do with Skidmore after Loper Bright. What we’re seeing reflected in the Ninth Circuit and Fifth Circuit is emblematic of that uncertainty.”