Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 116

529US1

Unit: $U32

[10-04-01 09:20:53] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 1 (2000)

41

Thomas, J., dissenting

been activated by such a “challeng[e] to the validity of the
Secretary’s . . . regulatio[n].” 476 U. S., at 680.9

But it is one thing to conclude that the result in Ringer
would have been different had we applied Michigan Acade-
my’s § 1395ii analysis to that case; it is quite another to de-
clare that Michigan Academy effected a sub silentio over-
ruling of Ringer. Contrary to the majority’s representation,
ante, at 18, my approach entails only the former, and there-
fore does not offend stare decisis principles as a sub silentio
overruling would. As noted, supra, at 35, our opinion in
Ringer did not expressly decide the meaning of § 1395ii, as-
suming instead (as the parties had done) that § 1395ii func-
tions as a garden variety incorporating reference, i. e., that
§ 1395ii
incorporates § 405(h) in every case involving the
Medicare Act. Accordingly, “[t]he most that can be said is
that the point was in the cas[e] if anyone had seen ﬁt to
raise it. Questions which merely lurk in the record, neither
brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are
not to be considered as having been so decided as to consti-
tute precedents.” Webster v. Fall, 266 U. S. 507, 511 (1925).
See also, e. g., Lopez v. Monterey County, 525 U. S. 266, 281
(1999) (“[T]his Court is not bound by its prior assumptions”);
United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S.
33, 38 (1952).
In other words, Michigan Academy could
not have overruled Ringer (sub silentio or otherwise) on a

9 While I readily agree with the majority’s observation that my reading
of Michigan Academy implies a different result in Ringer, I fail to com-
prehend the majority’s assertion that my view of Michigan Academy
also implies a different result in Weinberger v. Salﬁ, 422 U. S. 749 (1975).
See ante, at 18–19. As noted, supra, at 34, Salﬁ was a Social Security
case, and so § 405(h) applied of its own force.

Our post-Michigan Academy cases are entirely consistent with my
reading of Michigan Academy. For example, in Your Home Visiting
Nurse Services, Inc. v. Shalala, 525 U. S. 449 (1999), the challenge was
directed to a particular determination of reimbursement beneﬁts, and
we held that § 405(h), as incorporated into the Medicare Act by § 1395ii,
precluded resort to general federal-question jurisdiction.