Home › Case briefs › Constitutional Law

Gonzales v. Oregon

Supreme Court of the United States · 2006 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawFederalismAdministrative LawControlled Substances ActControlled Substances Actphysician-assisted suicideOregon Death With Dignity ActAttorney General

Facts

Oregon's Death With Dignity Act permits state-licensed physicians, subject to detailed safeguards, to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to certain terminally ill patients who request it. The drugs used under that regime are controlled substances regulated by the federal Controlled Substances Act and generally available only by written prescription from a registered physician. In 2001, the United States Attorney General issued an Interpretive Rule stating that using controlled substances to assist suicide is not a legitimate medical practice and that prescribing or dispensing them for that purpose is unlawful under the CSA, regardless of state law. Because physicians need DEA registration to prescribe those drugs and unlawful dispensing can trigger criminal liability, the Rule would substantially disrupt Oregon's regime.

Issue

Whether the Controlled Substances Act authorizes the Attorney General to declare that prescribing federally controlled substances for physician-assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose and therefore unlawful, notwithstanding Oregon law permitting the practice. Also at issue was what level of deference, if any, the Attorney General's Interpretive Rule should receive.

Rule

An agency interpretation receives Auer deference only when it interprets the agency's own genuinely informative regulation, not a regulation that merely parrots statutory language. Chevron deference applies only when Congress delegated authority to the agency generally to make rules carrying the force of law and the interpretation was promulgated in the exercise of that authority. Under the CSA, the Attorney General's delegated authority over registration, control, and execution of his functions does not authorize him to define general standards of medical practice or to declare physician-assisted suicide unlawful as a substantive federal rule; at most, such an interpretation is entitled only to Skidmore respect to the extent it is persuasive.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

The Federal Chemical Safety Bureau administers a statute allowing restricted compounds to be dispensed only for a "legitimate scientific purpose" by licensed researchers. Years earlier, the Bureau adopted a regulation stating that every authorization must be issued for a "legitimate scientific purpose in the ordinary course of research," and now the Bureau director issues an interpretive memorandum declaring that using a restricted compound for state-authorized memory-erasure experiments is never legitimate.

If a court reviews the memorandum, which is the best argument against giving it Auer deference?

Explanation. Auer deference applies when an agency interprets its own genuinely informative regulation. Under the majority opinion, no Auer deference is due where the regulation just parrots statutory language and gives little guidance on the disputed issue. Then the question remains one of statutory interpretation, not interpretation of the agency's own regulatory text.