Crown Castle v. PUC – Pa. SCt – July 21, 2020
Legislative rule-making - There is a well-recognized distinction in the law of administrative agencies between the authority of a rule adopted by an agency pursuant to what is denominated by the text-writers as legislative rule-making power and the authority of a rule adopted pursuant to interpretativerule-making power. The former type of rule ‘is the product of an exercise of legislative power by an administrative agency, pursuant to a grant of legislative power by the Legislative body,’ and ‘is valid and is as binding upon a court as a statute if it is (a) within the granted power, (b) issued pursuant to proper procedure, and (c) reasonable.’ K. C. Davis, 1 Administrative Law Treatise s 5.03, at 299 (1958). A court, in reviewing such a regulation, ‘is not at liberty to substitute its own discretion for that of administrative officers who have kept within the bounds of their administrative powers. To show that these have been exceeded in the field of action . . . involved, it is not enough that the prescribed system of accounts shall appear to be unwise or burdensome or inferior to another. Error or unwisdom is not equivalent to abuse. What has been ordered must appear to be ‘so entirely at odds with fundamental principles . . . as to be the expression of a whim rather than an exercise of judgment.[’]
Interpretive rule -making An interpretative rule on the other hand depends for its validity not upon a law-making grant of power, but rather upon the willingness of a reviewing court to say that it in fact tracks the meaning of the statute it interprets. While courts traditionally accord the interpretation of the agency charged with administration of the act some deference, the meaning of a statute is essentially a question of law for the court, and, when convinced that the interpretative regulation adopted by an administrative agency is unwise or violative of legislative intent, courts disregard the regulation. Pa. Human Relations Comm’n v. Uniontown Area Sch. Dist., 313 A.2d 156, 169 (Pa. 1973) (parallel citations omitted).
“While an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute it is charged with enforcing is entitled to deference, courts’ deference never comes into play when the statute is clear.”
