Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-431_5i36.pdf
Page Number: 27

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

23 

Opinion of the Court 

the  rules  contained  all  of  the  elements  of  a  notice  of  pro-
posed rulemaking as required by the APA.

The APA requires that the notice of proposed rulemaking 
contain  “reference  to  the  legal  authority  under  which  the 
rule is proposed” and “either the terms or substance of the
proposed rule or a description of the subjects and issues in-
volved.”  §§553(b)(2)–(3).  The request for comments in the
2017  IFRs  readily  satisfies  these  requirements.    That  re-
quest  detailed  the  Departments’  view  that  they  had  legal 
authority  under  the  ACA  to  promulgate  both  exemptions,
82  Fed.  Reg.  47794,  47844,  as  well  as  authority  under 
RFRA to promulgate the religious exemption, id., at 47800– 
47806.  And respondents do not—and cannot—argue that 
the  IFRs  failed  to  air  the  relevant  issues  with  sufficient 
detail for respondents to understand the Departments’ po-
sition.  See supra, at 10–11.  Thus, the APA notice require-
ments were satisfied. 

Even assuming that the APA requires an agency to pub-
lish  a  document  entitled  “notice  of  proposed  rulemaking” 
when the agency moves from an IFR to a final rule, there
was no “prejudicial error” here.  §706.  We have previously
noted that the rule of prejudicial error is treated as an “ad-
ministrative law . . . harmless error rule,” National Assn. of 
Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U. S. 644, 659– 
660 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).  Here, the 
Departments  issued  an  IFR  that  explained  its  position  in 
fulsome  detail  and  “provide[d]  the  public  with  an  oppor-
tunity to comment on whether [the] regulations . . . should 
be  made  permanent  or  subject  to  modification.”  82  Fed. 
Reg. 47815; see also id., at 47852, 47855.  Respondents thus
do not come close to demonstrating that they experienced
any harm from the title of the document, let alone that they
have satisfied this harmless error rule.  “The object [of no-
tice and comment], in short, is one of fair notice,” Long Is-
land Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke, 551 U. S. 158, 174 (2007), 
and respondents certainly had such notice here.  Because