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Page Number: 28.0

4 

PEREZ v. MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSN. 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U. S. 504, 512–513 
(1994); see also id., at 518 (THOMAS, J., dissenting).

On  this  steady  march  toward  deference,  the Court  only
once  expressly  declined  to  apply  Seminole  Rock  deference 
on the ground that the agency’s interpretation was plainly 
erroneous.2  In that case, we were faced with the predict-
able  consequence  of  this  line  of  precedents:  An  agency 
sought  deference  to  an  opinion  letter  that  interpreted  a
permissive  regulation  as  mandatory.    See  Christensen  v. 
Harris County, 529 U. S. 576, 588 (2000).  We rejected that
request  for  deference  as  an  effort,  “under  the  guise  of 
interpreting a regulation, to create de facto a new regula-
tion.”  Ibid.   This  narrow  limit  on  the  broad  deference 
given the agency interpretations, though sound, could not
save  a  doctrine  that  was  constitutionally  infirm  from  the 
start.  Seminole  Rock  was  constitutionally  suspect  from
the  start,  and  this  Court’s  repeated  extensions  of  it  have
only magnified the effects and the attendant concerns. 

—————— 

2 The  Court  has  also  twice  expressly  found  Seminole  Rock  deference 
inapplicable  for  other  reasons.    Christopher  v.  SmithKline  Beecham 
Corp.,  567  U. S.  ___,  ___–___  (2012)  (slip  op.,  at  13–14)  (“[W]here,  as 
here,  an  agency’s  announcement  of  its  interpretation  is  preceded  by  a 
very  lengthy  period  of  conspicuous  inaction,  the  potential  for  unfair
surprise is acute. . . . [W]hatever the general merits of Auer deference, 
it  is  unwarranted  here”);  Gonzales  v.  Oregon,  546  U. S.  243,  256–257 
(2006) (“In our view Auer and the standard of deference it accords to an 
agency  are  inapplicable  here.  . . .  The  language  the  Interpretive  Rule
addresses comes from Congress, not the Attorney General, and the near 
equivalence  of  the  statute  and  regulation  belies  the  Government’s
argument for Auer deference”).  

Occasionally,  Members  of  this  Court  have  argued  in  separate  writ-
ings  that  the  Court  failed  appropriately  to  apply  Seminole  Rock  defer-
ence, but in none of those cases did the majority opinions of the Court 
expressly  refuse  to  do  so.   See  Ballard  v.  Commissioner,  544  U. S.  40 
(2005);  Allentown  Mack  Sales  &  Service,  Inc.  v.  NLRB,  522  U. S.  359 
(1998);  Director,  Office  of  Workers’  Compensation  Programs  v.  Green-
wich Collieries, 512 U. S. 267 (1994); United States v. Swank, 451 U. S. 
571 (1981); Peters v. Hobby, 349 U. S. 331 (1955).