SECOND FEATURE
SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS CHEVRON DOCTRINE , Reshaping CRE Regulation
How Loper Bright and the End to the Chevron Doctrine Impact CRE
What does a 40-year-old legal dispute involving commercial fishing have to do with real estate ? As it turns out , a whole lot .
Back in 1984 , the U . S . Supreme Court handed down a big decision in Chevron USA Inc . v . Natural Resources Defense Council that created an important legal precedent that became known as the Chevron deference doctrine . Effectively , that ruling gave regulatory agencies the power to step in and make decisions in cases where the law was not clear . Fast forward to today , and the Supreme Court is revoking that decision-making power and putting it back in the hands of federal courts .
The Supreme Court released its decision in a new case , Loper Bright Enterprises v . Raimondo , in June that said that the Chevron approach does not fit with the Administrative Procedure Act ( APA ) that says courts should make decisions on legal questions themselves . In its current ruling , the Supreme Court said that while courts should respect agencies ’ decisions on policy and facts , the courts must handle questions about how laws are interpreted .
What the Supreme Court is trying to do with Loper Bright addresses the fact that over the past 40 years , there has been a gradual shift in power to the point where there is now too much power held by the regulatory agencies , explains Byron Smith , Sr ., Esq ., CCIM , President of Metropolitan Realty Group Inc . in Vienna , Va . According to Smith , one of the key arguments behind the new decision is that the Constitution says that the courts are the final arbiter on what the law says in the U . S . – not regulatory agencies . If certain expertise is needed , the court can access that expertise or needed information , while still maintaining control in decision-making .
Opening the Door to Legal Challenges
The Loper Bright ruling is significant on a couple of different fronts . For present and future challenges to laws involving regulations , decision-making will be made by one of the 94 district courts in the federal court system . Another important twist came a few days after Chevon was overturned with Corner Post Inc . v . Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System . The Corner Post ruling significantly extended the statute of limitations on decisions , throwing the door open wide for past and future court challenges . Under the previous rule , the clock started on the six-year statute of limitations on the date of the final agency action . The new rule starts the clock on the date a challenger is “ injured ” by an action . So , whereas in the past if a ruling was made in 2020 , the
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