Gonzales v. Oregon
United States Supreme Court
546 U.S. 243 (2006)
Oregon (plaintiff) legalized physician-assisted suicide under specific safeguards through a 1994 ballot measure; in 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft (predecessor to defendant Gonzales) issued an interpretive rule declaring that dispensing federally controlled drugs for assisted suicide was not a legitimate medical purpose and thus violated the CSA, threatening physician deregistration. Oregon obtained an injunction against enforcing the rule, and the court of appeals agreed the rule was invalid.
Whether, when multiple federal agencies are authorized to promulgate rules and enforce a statute's provisions, the agency with the greatest subject-matter familiarity and policymaking expertise is presumed to hold the delegated interpretive authority over a given issue.