Cite as: 503 U. S. 318 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
amended the statute so construed to demonstrate that the usual common-law principles were the keys to meaning. See United Ins. Co., supra, at 256 ("Congressional reaction to [Hearst] was adverse and Congress passed an amendment . . . [t]he obvious purpose of [which] was to have the . . . courts apply general agency principles in distinguishing between employees and independent contractors under the Act"); Social Security Act of 1948, ch. 468, § 1(a), 62 Stat. 438 (1948) (amending statute to provide that term "employee" "does not include . . . any individual who, under the usual common-law rules applicable in determining the employer-employee relationship, has the status of an independent contractor") (emphasis added); see also United States v. W. M. Webb, Inc., 397 U. S. 179, 183-188 (1970) (discussing congressional reaction to Silk).
To be sure, Congress did not, strictly speaking, "overrule" our interpretation of those statutes, since the Constitution invests the Judiciary, not the Legislature, with the final power to construe the law. But a principle of statutory construction can endure just so many legislative revisitations, and Reid's presumption that Congress means an agency law definition for "employee" unless it clearly indicates otherwise signaled our abandonment of Silk's emphasis on construing that term " 'in the light of the mischief to be corrected and the end to be attained.' " Silk, supra, at 713, quoting Hearst, supra, at 124.
At oral argument, Darden tried to subordinate Reid to Rutherford Food Corp. v. McComb, 331 U. S. 722 (1947), which adopted a broad reading of "employee" under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). And amicus United States, while rejecting Darden's position, also relied on Rutherford Food for the proposition that, when enacting ERISA, Congress must have intended a modified common-law definition of "employee" that would advance, in a way not defined, the Act's "remedial purposes." Brief for United States as Ami-
325
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007