On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated ruling in a pair of cases challenging the long-standing Chevron doctrine. Foreshadowed by decisions in recent years criticizing Chevron, it was widely expected that SCOTUS would use its rulings in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce to diminish, if not entirely discard, Chevron‘s precedent of judicial deference to agencies. SCOTUS took decisive action, overruling Chevron and potentially changing the way courts will review federal agency-related litigation for many years to come.

What’s the Big Deal?

For 40 years, Chevron symbolized the legal principle that judges should defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute. This approach has reflected a preference for an agency’s subject matter experts, rather than a randomly drawn judge, to make significant policy-making decisions. Chevron detractors have argued that such deference gave the agencies too much power without an adequate check on agency overreach and created unpredictability as new administrations give rise to different interpretations and evolving regulatory enforcement. Either way, one of the most cited cases in American law is now history.

Key Takeaways From the Ruling