Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1041_0861.pdf
Page Number: 8

Cite as:  575 U. S. ____ (2015) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

Wage and Hour Division again altered its interpretation of 
the  FLSA’s  administrative  exemption  as  it  applied  to 
mortgage-loan  officers.  Id.,  at  49a–69a.    Reviewing  the
provisions  of  the  2004  regulations  and  judicial  decisions
addressing  the  administrative  exemption,  the  Depart-
ment’s 2010 Administrator’s Interpretation concluded that
mortgage-loan  officers  “have  a  primary  duty  of  making
sales  for  their  employers,  and,  therefore,  do  not  qualify” 
for  the  administrative  exemption.    Id.,  at  49a,  69a.  The 
Department  accordingly  withdrew  its  2006  opinion  letter,
which  it  now  viewed  as  relying  on  “misleading  assump-
tion[s]  and  selective  and  narrow  analysis”  of  the  exemp-
tion  example  in  §541.203(b).    Id.,  at  68a.  Like  the  1999, 
2001,  and  2006  opinion  letters,  the  2010  Administrator’s
Interpretation was issued without notice or an opportunity 
for comment. 

C 
MBA  filed  a  complaint  in  Federal  District  Court  chal-
lenging  the  Administrator’s  Interpretation.  MBA  con-
tended that the document was inconsistent with the 2004 
regulation  it  purported  to  interpret,  and  thus  arbitrary
and  capricious  in  violation  of  §10  of  the  APA,  5  U. S. C. 
§706.  More pertinent to this case, MBA also argued that
the  Administrator’s  Interpretation  was  procedurally  in-
valid  in  light  of  the  D. C.  Circuit’s  decision  in  Paralyzed 
Veterans,  117  F.  3d  579.    Under  the  Paralyzed  Veterans
doctrine, if “an agency has given its regulation a definitive 
interpretation,  and  later  significantly  revises  that  inter-
pretation, the agency has in effect amended its rule, some-
thing  it  may  not  accomplish”  under  the  APA  “without
notice and comment.”  Alaska Professional Hunters Assn., 
Inc.  v.  FAA,  177  F.  3d  1030,  1034  (CADC  1999).    Three 
former mortgage-loan officers—Beverly Buck, Ryan Henry,
and  Jerome  Nickols—subsequently  intervened  in  the