- Court: United States Supreme Court
- Area(s) of Law: Administrative Law
- Date Filed: March 9, 2015
- Case #: 13-1401
- Judge(s)/Court Below: Sotomayor, J., delivered the Court’s opinion which Roberts, C.J., and Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan JJ. joined, and Alito J., joining except for Part III-B. Alito, J. filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Scalia, J. and Thomas J., filed concurring opinions in the judgment.
- Full Text Opinion
Appellant filed suit alleging that the Dept. of Labor had engaged in improper rulemaking under the D.C. Circuit decision in Paralyzed Veterans of America v. D.C. Arena L.P., 117 F.3d 579. The appellant sued because the Dept. of Labor issued a new interpretive rule stating that mortgage loan officers did not qualify for the administrative exemption for overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which contradicted the previous interpretive rule. Appellants argued that under the holding in Paralyzed Veterans that a federal administrative agency must engage in notice and comment when issuing a new interpretive rule. Summary judgment was granted to the Dept. of Labor by the district court, but the D.C. Circuit reversed based on the holding from Paralyzed Veterans.
The Court found that the § 1 of the APA requires agencies to use the same rules and procedures required for the issuance of a rule to be used when a rule is amended or repealed. Also, the Court found that § 4 of the APA exempts agencies from engaging in notice and comment procedures when promulgating interpretive rules. The Court held that the decision in Paralyzed Veterans created an additional jurisprudential procedural right that violates the intention of Congress and reversed.