Precedent and United States Administrative Law

In the common law order, precedent is not only a matter of applying law but also of making law. The crucial function of stare decisis is to relieve the appearance of judicial arbitrariness. Precedent also applies in the domain of administrative law in the context of judicial control of administrative policy making. Federal courts treat administrative agencies as having precedent-setting powers comparable to their own, under what is referred to as the Chevron doctrine. This doctrine determines the scope of judicial control of the decisional process performed by an administrative agency, particularly when the court is called upon to enforce a limitation to the administrative discretion delegated by the agency’s governing statute