Opinion ID: 765833
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court's Inconsistency Argument.

Text: 75 The district court erred when it disregarded HCFA's interpretation because it found it inconsistent. In the Chevron decision itself, the administrative agency charged with implementing the relevant statute had changed its interpretation of the challenged statute multiple times. The respondents in Chevron contended that because the agency changed its interpretation of the statute so often, the Court should have afforded it no deference. The Supreme Court disagreed and noted that: The fact that the agency has from time to time changed its interpretation of the relevant statute does not . . . lead us to conclude that no deference should be accorded the agency's interpretation of the statute . . . .[T]he agency, to engage in informed rulemaking, must consider varying interpretations and the wisdom of its policy on a continuing basis. Chevron, 467 U.S. at 863-64, 104 S. Ct. at 2792, 81 L. Ed. 2d 694. 76 In ignoring HCFA's interpretation, the district court offered no reason other than the fact that HCFA supposedly changed its position regarding the interpretation of the Boren Amendment over time. 1 This is not determinative. Had HCFA, for example, changed its position because it somehow was in its advantage to do so, one should be inclined to reject its interpretation of the statute. That did not happen in this case, however. Therefore, we should defer to HCFA's good faith attempt to interpret a complex statute with which it was charged to implement. 77 For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent. Notes: 1 Moreover, I do not believe that HCFA's position on this issue was at all inconsistent. The district court noted that HCFA, before the filing of this lawsuit, had never officially announced its position on the interpretation of the Boren Amendment. The court below instead relied on a district court decision, Multicare Medical Center v. Washington, 768 F. Supp. 1349, 1401 (W.D. Wash. 1991), to reach its conclusion that HCFA has been inconsistent in its position on the applicability of the Boren Amendment to out-of-state hospitals. In Multicare, the district court concluded that the Boren Amendment required Washington to make payments to outof-state providers. In reaching its conclusion, the district court relied on correspondence between a HCFA regional office and the State of Washington. HCFA's Central Office, however, had never announced a policy that embraced the view of its regional office. According to HCFA, only its Central Office actually has the authority to announce such policies. It was of no consequence, therefore, that a regional office concluded otherwise. The district court relied on similar correspondence between a HCFA regional office and California to support its position. HCFA offered two plausible explanations for this correspondence as well. First, HCFA notes that the correspondence never expressly states that the Boren Amendment applies to out-of-state hospitals. Second, HCFA notes that even if we were to construe this correspondence as declaring that the Boren Amendment applies to out-of-state hospitals, this view represents only the views of a regional office not empowered to make centralized HCFA policies. I find HCFA's explanations sufficient and would find no inconsistency.