Opinion ID: 2371470
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Decision of the Superior Court Failed to Give the DBR's Interpretation of Its Regulatory Statute the Requisite Deference

Text: Initially, we hold that the Superior Court justice who reviewed this DBR decision improperly overrode the department's right to interpret this ambiguous regulatory statute by not deferring to the agency's interpretation of the term instrument, as the General Assembly used that term in § 19-14-1. Because the General Assembly did not define the term instrument in the check-cashing statute and because it was subject to more than one reasonable interpretation  we quote at least four possible definitions below  the Superior Court should have found that this term was ambiguous. As indicated previously, when the statute `is silent or ambiguous' we must defer to a reasonable construction by the agency charged with its implementation. Barnhart v. Thomas, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 124 S.Ct. 376, 380, 157 L.Ed.2d 333 (2003) (quoting Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984)); In re Lallo, 768 A.2d at 926. The trial justice, therefore, should not have reversed the administrative decision interpreting this ambiguous regulatory statute because that decision was not clearly erroneous or unauthorized. See In re Lallo, 768 A.2d at 926. Although the agency could have reasonably interpreted the term instrument in a narrower manner, as the Superior Court did, DBR chose another reasonable interpretation of this undefined term, construing it broadly to encompass all written legal documents defining or evidencing a right to payment, regardless of their negotiability. Far from being erroneous or unauthorized, this decision simply adopted one of several extant definitions or interpretations of the undefined statutory term instrument and reasonably applied it to this factual situation. Thus, even though the reviewing justice disagreed with the agency's conclusion because he would have preferred a narrower definition of this undefined statutory term (namely, the one set forth in Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.) pertaining to negotiable instruments) than the one that DBR chose to apply, he was not free to reverse that administrative decision because it was not clearly erroneous or unauthorized.