The Supreme Court’s Other Administrative Law Blockbuster: Corner Post

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court punctuated its recent revolution in administrative law by overruling Chevron USA Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. For 40 years, Chevron had been outcome determinative in a vast array of administrative law decisions because it required courts to defer to administrative actors’ interpretations of ambiguous laws. This sentiment was couched in “respect” to the agencies and their relative technical expertise, but it meant that agencies could drive legal analysis in ways previously reserved to the courts.

Popular opinion on Loper Bright has been mixed. But most sophisticated readings emphasize Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion’s many caveats, its narrow analysis, and its steadfast avoidance of destabilizing consequences. Most notably, the majority opinion insists that the court did “not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework.” 

But on the final day of the term, the court also released its decision in Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal ReserveSystem, a case on the seemingly dry and unimportant question of whether a claim accrues under the Administrative Procedure Act’s review provisions when a plaintiff suffers an injury or when a regulation was issued. Corner Post held that a claim accrues, and thus the statute of limitations begins to run when a plaintiff is injured, no matter how old a rule might be.

Reading Loper Bright and Corner Post together suggests that Justice Roberts’s assurances about upsetting prior administrative law decisions may not always be accurate. Join Hudson for a panel discussion on the implications of these landmark court cases.