ABA Seeks Supreme Court Intervention in Field-of-Membership Case

ABA Seeks Supreme Court Intervention in Field-of-Membership Case

The American Bankers Association (ABA) on June 8 filed its reply brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling in the association’s challenge of the National Credit Union Administration’s 2016 field -of-membership rule. (Keith Leggett’s Credit Union Watch, June 11)

In August, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of rule while remanding a portion related to redlining concerns. The court will grant ABA’s petition if four of the nine justices vote to accept the case.

In appealing, ABA argued that the D.C. Circuit’s decision “stretches Chevron deference past the breaking point” in ruling that NCUA could define a “local community” as a combined statistical area inhabited by up to 2.5 million people or define an entire state as a “rural district.” Under the Supreme Court’s Chevron doctrine, courts defer to administrative agencies’ interpretation of statutes they administer where Congress has not specifically addressed the question at issue.

Read the reply brief.