Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 79.0

529US1

Unit: $U32

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

4

SHALALA v. ILLINOIS COUNCIL ON LONG
TERM CARE, INC.
Syllabus

her brief and regulations, the Secretary offers a legally permissible in-
terpretation of the statute: that it permits a dissatisﬁed nursing home
to have an administrative hearing on a determination that it has failed
to comply substantially with the statute, agreements, or regulations,
whether termination or some other remedy is imposed. See, e. g., Chev-
ron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S.
837, 843. The Secretary also denies that she engages in any practice
that forces a home to submit a corrective plan and sacriﬁce appeal rights
in order to avoid termination, or that penalizes more severely a home
that chooses to appeal. Because the Council offers no convincing rea-
son to doubt her description of the agency’s practice, the Court need
not decide whether a practice that forced homes to abandon legitimate
challenges could amount to the practical equivalent of a total denial of
judicial review.
If, as the Council argues, the regulations unlawfully
limit the extent to which the agency will provide the administrative
review channel leading to judicial review, its members remain free, after
following the special review route, to contest in court the lawfulness of
the relevant regulation or statute. That is true even if the agency does
not or cannot resolve the particular contention, because it is the “action”
arising under the Medicare Act that must be channeled through the
agency. The Council ﬁnally argues that, as an association speaking on
behalf of its injured members, it has no standing to take advantage of
the special review channel. However, it is the members’ rights to re-
view that are at stake, and the statutes creating the special review
channel adequately protect those rights. Pp. 20–24.

143 F. 3d 1072, reversed.

Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court,

in which Rehn-
quist, C. J., and O’Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Ste-
vens, J., post, p. 30, and Scalia, J., post, p. 31, ﬁled dissenting opinions.
Thomas, J., ﬁled a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens and Kennedy,
JJ., joined, and in which Scalia, J., joined except as to Part III, post,
p. 32.

Jeffrey A. Lamken argued the cause for petitioners.
With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Waxman,
Acting Assistant Attorney General Ogden, Deputy Solicitor
General Kneedler, Barbara C. Biddle, Jeffrey Clair, Harriet
S. Rabb, and Jeffrey Golland.