If a key Supreme Court precedent is overturned, employers should be prepared for courts to play a larger role in interpreting federal regulations with a potential for regional differences across the country.
Two cases determining federal agencies’ authority to interpret laws passed by Congress are before the Supreme Court: Relentless v. Department of Commerce, in which the owners of three fishing companies in Rhode Island and Massachusetts sued to challenge the federal government’s authority to require them to partially pay for federal monitors on their boats, and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which involves the same requirement for fishing companies in New Jersey.
The justices will decide whether to overturn the long-standing Chevron precedent, which holds that when Congress wrote a statute that’s vague, courts should defer to the federal agency applying the law, as long as the agency’s directives are reasonable.
The final ruling could impact the outcomes of employers’ future cases against federal agencies that enforce employment laws, such as the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“If Chevron is overturned, the courts will be far more involved in determining how statutes should be interpreted,” Joshua Ditelberg, an attorney with Seyfarth in Chicago, told SHRM Online. “It is highly likely that as a result of the Supreme Court’s decisions in these cases, agency actions will be subject to more exacting judicial review.”
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