Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 663

529US2

Unit: $U53

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CHRISTENSEN v. HARRIS COUNTY

Opinion of the Court

out of compensatory time so long as these provisions are
(1999)
consistent with [§ 207(o)].” 29 CFR § 553.23(a)(2)
(emphasis added). Nothing in the regulation even arguably
requires that an employer’s compelled use policy must be
included in an agreement. The text of the regulation itself
indicates that its command is permissive, not mandatory.

Seeking to overcome the regulation’s obvious meaning, the
United States asserts that the agency’s opinion letter inter-
preting the regulation should be given deference under our
decision in Auer v. Robbins, 519 U. S. 452 (1997).
In Auer,
we held that an agency’s interpretation of its own regulation
is entitled to deference.
Id., at 461. See also Bowles v.
Seminole Rock & Sand Co., 325 U. S. 410 (1945). But Auer
deference is warranted only when the language of the regula-
tion is ambiguous. The regulation in this case, however, is
not ambiguous—it is plainly permissive. To defer to the
agency’s position would be to permit the agency, under the
guise of interpreting a regulation, to create de facto a new
regulation. Because the regulation is not ambiguous on the
issue of compelled compensatory time, Auer deference is
unwarranted.

*

*

*

As we have noted, no relevant statutory provision ex-
pressly or implicitly prohibits Harris County from pursuing
its policy of forcing employees to utilize their compensatory
time.
In its opinion letter siding with the petitioners, the
Department of Labor opined that “it is our position that nei-
ther the statute nor the regulations permit an employer to
require an employee to use accrued compensatory time.”
Opinion Letter (emphasis added). But this view is exactly
backwards. Unless the FLSA prohibits respondents from
adopting its policy, petitioners cannot show that Harris
County has violated the FLSA. And the FLSA contains
no such prohibition. The judgment of the Court of Appeals
is afﬁrmed.

It is so ordered.