Opinion ID: 1784672
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Deferring to the Agency in this Case

Text: As I mentioned, the Department of Banking and Finance is the agency charged with enforcing and interpreting the Money Transmitters' Code. The Department interpreted the Code's term check cashing to include some, but not all, deferred presentment transactions. Under the doctrine of administrative deference, we must defer to this interpretation as long as it is within the scope of the Department's authority and is consistent with the statute. I address each requirement separately. The Department's interpretation falls within its scope of authority to implement the Code. The statute provides that the Department may exercise [o]nly such rulemaking power and administrative discretion. . . as is necessary, in order that the supervision and regulation of money transmitters may be flexible and readily responsive to changes in economic conditions, in technology, and in money transmitter practices. § 560.102(2)(h), Fla. Stat. (1997). Here, the Department's interpretation surely meets that test of necessity. After the Code was enacted, the check-cashing industry asked the Department to explain whether check cashing included deferred presentment transactions. These transactions were very similar to ordinary check cashing, but involved the additional element of delay in cashing the check. For the regulation of money transmitters to remain flexible and readily responsive to changes . . . in money transmitter practices, id., the Department absolutely needed to determine whether deferred presentment transactions qualified as check cashing. These were precisely the circumstances in which the Legislature intended for the Department to exercise its authority. The other factor in deciding whether to defer to the Department is whether its interpretation enlarged, modified, or contravened the statute. It did none of those things. Rather, it reasonably clarified a statutory ambiguity. The Code contained only general references to check cashing, which it defined as providing currency for payment instruments. Id. § 560.302(1). At the time, the Code did not mention deferred presentment transactions. Such transactions, however, possess all the attributes of check cashing mentioned in the Code: the customer receives currency in exchange for a payment instrument (albeit one that will not be presented until a later date). The Department, faced with this ambiguity, interpreted check cashing to include deferred presentment transactions, except if they result in a rollover for an additional fee. Where a statute is silent, we have traditionally allowed agencies to determine how a general statutory directive should be applied to specific circumstances. As we explained in General Telephone Co. of Florida v. Marks, 500 So.2d 142 (Fla.1986): The legislature cannot be expected to foresee and make provision for every possible type of [situation]. . . . Some discretion must be given to regulatory bodies to promulgate the detailed rules that expand upon and implement legislative directives. Id. at 145. In Marks, the Legislature had stated in general terms that the agency could make a certain calculation. We explained that [u]nless there is something else directly contrary in the statute itself, we must assume the legislature intended to grant the commission the discretion to determine what factors should be used in calculating [the figure]. Id. We have continued to apply this logic in more recent cases. See, e.g., Level 3 Commc'ns, 841 So.2d at 453-54 (quoting Marks ). We should apply it in this case as well, where the Department applied a general statutory provision to specific facts. While not the only plausible reading of the Code, the Department's interpretation is the most natural one. Check cashing is designed to place currency in the customer's hands faster than otherwise feasible, in exchange for a fee that compensates the check casher for its efforts and assumption of risk. See Michael S. Barr, Banking the Poor, 21 Yale J. on Reg. 121, 142, 145 (2004) (explaining that check cashers mostly accept low-risk payroll or government benefit checks from customers who lack a bank account or who find that they lack sufficient liquidity to wait the two-to-three days for their bank to clear access to funds from a deposited check). In an ordinary check-cashing transaction, the check casher may present the check as soon as possible. But nothing in the statute dictates when the check must be cashed or prohibits the parties from negotiating on that point. A deferred presentment transaction merely lengthens the time between the customer's receipt of currency and the company's cashing of the check. As long as the check casher ultimately presents the check to a bank at the end of the deferral period, or at least receives full payment in cash from the customer, the transaction remains so similar to ordinary check cashing that the most sensible reading of the statute is to treat them the same. When a customer instead returns to the check casher and rolls over the initial transaction, paying another fee to extend the period for actual payment, the transaction looks less like check cashing and more like a traditional loan. The Department sensibly concluded that rollover transactions  however styled or disguised  go beyond mere check cashing and cannot be squeezed within the Code. Instead, they must adhere to the interest restrictions established by the usury statute. This distinction between completed transactions and rollovers is so persuasive that I would adopt it even on de novo review. That it comes directly from the statute's implementing agency clinches the matter. At the very least, the Department's interpretation deserves our deference. To the extent the majority refuses to defer, I respectfully dissent.