Sixth Circuit Highlights Loper Bright’s Impact on Other Deference Regimes  

An interesting question after Loper Bright is how the demise of Chevron deference intersects with other deference doctrines that are still on the books, albeit perhaps on life support, such as Auer deference (which allows courts to defer to agency interpretations of their own regulations) and Stinson deference (which teaches that courts should defer to Sentencing Commission commentary on federal sentencing guidelines). 

In Niblock v. University of Kentucky, a recent Sixth Circuit decision addressing a challenge to the adequacy of the University’s sports programs under Title IX, Chief Judge Sutton, joined by Judge Murphy, authored a thoughtful concurring opinion highlighting this broader Loper Bright implementation question. The Sixth Circuit resolved this case on narrower grounds, declining to address the University’s argument that the Department of Education’s Title IX “guidance does not survive” Loper Bright and Kisor because the plaintiffs’ claims failed for other reasons. Nonetheless, the opinion—also authored by Chief Judge Sutton—noted “the many developments in administrative law since 1979” when the guidance was first issued, noting that the Sixth Circuit “has not looked at the validity of the guidance since Loper Bright and Kisor.” 

The concurrence expressed skepticism about the guidance’s validity, notwithstanding prior circuit law upholding it. This guidance was “adopted the guidance in a different world . . .  where courts routinely deferred to agency interpretations of statutes and regulations,” Judge Sutton observed, “[b]ut a lot has changed since 1979.” Citing Loper Bright, he explained that courts “no longer defer to agency interpretations of the statutes they administer” but instead “now treat all laws alike, ‘independently interpret[ing] the statute and effectuat[ing] the will of Congress subject to constitutional limits,’ without abdicating that responsibility to executive agencies.” Citing Kisor, he noted that courts “no longer lightly defer to agency interpretations of their own regulations” under Auer and thus this doctrine plays far less of a role today in statutory interpretation. 

Tying this together, Judge Sutton’s concurrence continues: 

The fate of these erstwhile deference-to-agency regimes remains linked. One reason that an agency’s interpretations of its own rules received deference under Auer was that its views of the relevant statute also received deference under Chevron. Knock out Chevron, and the scope of Auer deference narrows considerably, if indeed it remains meaningful at all. Loper Bright and Kisor should prompt us to revisit the 1979 guidance in an appropriate case. 

This point is important, underscoring Loper Bright’s broader potential significance in realigning the relationship between federal courts and the executive branch. It may well be that Loper Bright’s reaffirmation of Article III courts’ obligation to independently interpret statutes in cases involving agencies has fatally undermined the theoretical underpinnings of whatever remained of Auer deference after Kisor—and the continuing vitality of other sundry deference doctrines. And it will be interesting to see whether the Supreme Court will build on Loper Bright by squarely overruling Auer in a future decision and fully restoring Article III’s promise of judicial independence in saying what the law is.  

SCOTUS Relist

Dovetailing with Judge Sutton’s observations in Niblock on the relationship between the defunct Chevron doctrine and whatever remains of Auer, the future of Stinson deference is also in flux in the wake of Loper Bright’s overruling of Chevron. And it just so happens that the Court has before it an ideal opportunity to clarify how its decisions in Loper Bright and Kisor impact other deference doctrines. As Recasting Regulations has previously written about here and here, a now-thrice-relisted cert petition raises a related question in Poore v. United States, asking the Court to address “[w]hether the limits on agency deference announced in Kisor and Loper Bright constrain the deference courts may accord the Sentencing Commission’s interpretation of its own rules via commentary.” If the Court agrees to decide this case on the merits, it will provide an important opportunity to elucidate the broader meaning and significance of Loper Bright.