Courts Show Little Interest in Skidmore as a Chevron Alternative

Federal judges reviewing agency actions have largely omitted from their rulings an 80-year-old precedent calling for a mild form of deference to the government in the month since the US Supreme Court struck down the more powerful Chevron doctrine.

The high court’s recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ended the requirement that courts defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous laws, while ostensibly leaving available Skidmore deference—which calls on courts to give weight to agency stances according to their persuasiveness.

But federal courts didn’t refer to 1944’s Skidmore v. Swift & Co. in 19 of ...