Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 17

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

States v. Moore, 95 U. S. 760, 763 (1878); see also Jacobs v. 
Prichard, 223 U. S. 200, 214 (1912).

“Respect,” though, was just that.  The views of the Exec-
utive  Branch  could  inform  the  judgment  of  the  Judiciary,
but  did  not  supersede  it.  Whatever  respect  an  Executive 
Branch interpretation was due, a judge “certainly would not 
be bound to adopt the construction given by the head of a 
department.”    Decatur,  14  Pet.,  at  515;  see  also  Burnet  v. 
Chicago Portrait Co., 285 U. S. 1, 16 (1932).  Otherwise, ju-
dicial judgment would not be independent at all.  As Justice 
Story put it, “in cases where [a court’s] own judgment . . . 
differ[ed] from that of other high functionaries,” the court 
was “not at liberty to surrender, or to waive it.”  Dickson, 
15 Pet., at 162. 

B 
The New Deal ushered in a “rapid expansion of the ad-
ministrative process.”  United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338 
U. S. 632, 644 (1950).  But as new agencies with new powers
proliferated,  the  Court  continued  to  adhere  to  the  tradi-
tional understanding that questions of law were for courts 
to decide, exercising independent judgment.

During this period, the Court often treated agency deter-
minations  of  fact  as  binding  on  the  courts,  provided  that 
there  was  “evidence  to  support  the  findings.”  St.  Joseph 
Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 38, 51 (1936). 
“When  the  legislature  itself  acts  within  the  broad  field  of 
legislative discretion,” the Court reasoned, “its determina-
tions are conclusive.”  Ibid.  Congress could therefore “ap-
point[ ] an agent to act within that sphere of legislative au-
thority” and “endow the agent with power to make findings 
of fact which are conclusive, provided the requirements of
due  process  which  are  specially  applicable  to  such  an 
agency are met, as in according a fair hearing and acting
upon evidence and not arbitrarily.”  Ibid. (emphasis added).
But the Court did not extend similar deference to agency