Court Opinion

ID: 9582616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:29:30.200061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:02.906253
License: Public Domain

DUNCAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The Family and Medical Leave Act (the “FMLA”) provides aggrieved employees with a “[r]ight of action,” 29 U.S.C. § 2617(a)(2), or a “right ... to bring an action,” id. § 2617(a)(4), against an employer who commits any of the acts prohibited by the statute. The Department of Labor (the “DOL”), in its regulations implementing the FMLA, has declared: “Employees cannot waive, nor may employers induce employees to waive, then-rights under FMLA.” 29 C.F.R. § 825.220(d). The crux of the majority’s reasoning is that “[t]he regulation, by specifying ‘rights under FMLA,’ ... refers to all rights under the FMLA,” Majority Op. at 457, including in particular the “Might of action” or “right ... to bring an action” described in § 2617(a)(2), (4) (emphasis added).
The majority’s position is, standing alone, eminently reasonable. Indeed, we defensibly so held after first hearing oral argument in this appeal. See Taylor v. Progress Energy, Inc. (Taylor I), 415 F.3d 364, 369 (4th Cir.2005), vacated, No. 04-1525, 2006 U.SApp. LEXIS 15744 (4th Cir. June 14, 2006). We reached our decision guided by established rules of statutory construction appropriate for the procedural posture of the case as it then existed. See id. The majority clearly and thoughtfully recounts that analysis here.
The course of this appeal was unexpectedly diverted, however, when the DOL rejected the analysis of Taylor I in its belated amicus brief supporting Progress Energy’s petition for rehearing en banc. See Amicus Br. for Secretary of Labor at 4 (interpreting the regulation not to prohibit the waiver of causes of action). After such interposition, the question in the case was necessarily recast. See Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 461, 117 S.Ct. 905, 137 L.Ed.2d 79 (1997) (recharacterizing the central issue in the case, after the Secretary of Labor filed an amicus brief, as whether the Secretary’s interpretation of his own regulations is “plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation” (internal quotations omitted)). Therefore, the issue before us is no longer whether the interpretation that we adopted in Taylor I was reasonable, but rather whether it is compelled by the language of the regulation.
I feel constrained to conclude that it is not. There are few words in the legal lexicon more ubiquitous and freighted than the term “right.” See United States v. Patrick, 54 F. 338, 348 (C.C.M.D.Tenn. *4641893) (“The words ‘rights’ or ‘privilege’ have, of course, a variety of meanings, according to the connection or context in which they are used.”); Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 23 Yale L.J. 16, 30-31 (1913) (“[T]he term ‘rights’ tends to be used indiscriminately to cover what in a given case may be a privilege, a power, or an immunity, rather than a right in the strictest sense; and this looseness of language is occasionally recognized by the authorities.... [W]e must ... recogniz[e] ... the very broad and indiscriminate use of the term ‘right.’ ” (internal punctuation altered)). The mere fact that the statute creates a “[r]ight of action,” 29 U.S.C. § 2617(a)(2), and the regulation refers to “rights under FMLA,” 29 C.F.R. 825.220(d), may suggest, but does not compel, an interpretation that the two uses of the word are coextensive. In light of the elasticity of the term “right,” it is not clear to me that “rights under FMLA” on its face subsumes accrued causes of action.
Given the existence of at least some measure of ambiguity in the regulation’s use of the term “rights,” then, I cannot but conclude that deference to the DOL’s interpretation is appropriate under Auer, 519 U.S. at 461, 117 S.Ct. 905. See Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U.S. 576, 588, 120 S.Ct. 1655, 146 L.Ed.2d 621 (2000) (“Auer deference is warranted ... when the language of the regulation is ambiguous.”); Humanoids Group v. Rogan, 375 F.3d 301, 306 (4th Cir.2004). I am further unpersuaded by any suggestion that the inconsistencies in the DOL’s interpretation of the regulation over time must lessen the level of deference to be accorded its present view. See Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke, — U.S.-, 127 S.Ct. 2339, 2349, 168 L.Ed.2d 54 (2007) (“[A]s long as interpretive changes create no unfair surprise — and the Department’s recourse to notice-and-comment rulemaking in an attempt to codify its new interpretation makes any such surprise unlikely here— the change in interpretation alone presents no separate ground for disregarding the Department’s present interpretation.” (internal citations omitted)); cf. Majority Op. at 463 n. 4 (noting that the DOL has issued notice that it is considering modifying the regulation to codify unambiguously its present interpretation).
Nevertheless, I fully agree that the history of the regulation at issue provides a model of how not to proceed during the rulemaking process. See Majority Op. at 461-63. Furthermore, timely intervention by the DOL before we issued Taylor I would have obviated the necessity of an additional hearing in this appeal, with its attendant expenditure of judicial and party resources.
With these cautionary addenda, I respectfully dissent.