The administrative state is going to court again. A case involving a tax refund claim disallowed by the Internal Revenue Service will provide an opportunity for the Supreme Court to reconsider judicial deference to agency interpretations of laws. In other words, writes Matthew Vadum, the Court is being asked to end judicial bias in favor of the government:
The Washington-based New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a petition for certiorari, or review, with the court in hopes of overturning the so-called Brand X doctrine that the Supreme Court articulated in its 2005 decision in National Cable and Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services.
The Brand X legal doctrine is unfair because, “if you ever find yourself in federal court suing a federal agency or being sued,” it requires deference to the federal agency interpreting the law if there is any ambiguity in the statute, Mark Chenoweth, executive director and general counsel of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, told The Epoch Times.
“Most people assume they will have a fair hearing in which the judge hears both sides but with Brand X even if the judge thinks one side has a better interpretation the judge has to defer to the agency if its interpretation is reasonable, so even if you have a better argument about the meaning of the law,” you lose the case, he said.
NCLA describes itself as a civil rights organization founded by legal scholar Philip Hamburger “to defend constitutional freedoms—primarily against the Administrative State.” Its “public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the administrative power.” [...]
NCLA clients Howard and Karen Baldwin are producers of several movies, including the Oscar-winning “Ray” (2004), about the life of the late singer Ray Charles. The Baldwins overpaid their income taxes by $167,663 and, four months before the October 2011 refiling deadline, used regular mail to send their refund claim to the IRS.
The tax agency claims it didn’t receive the documents and refused to pay. The IRS cited a new regulation it issued in August 2011 that ended the common-law mailbox rule for refund claims. That longstanding rule allowed a legal party to rely on extrinsic evidence to provide proof that an item was mailed but its disallowance by the new rule doomed the Baldwins’ claim.
The Baldwins had to sue the IRS to get their money back, and they won at trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which upheld the common-law mailbox rule. But on appeal, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals invoked the Brand X doctrine and deferred to the IRS’s new regulation, even though it contradicted court-made precedent.
[Matthew Vadum, “Group Asks Supreme Court to Weaken Legal Authority of Administrative State,” Epoch Times, September 24]
