Cite as: 516 U. S. 163 (1996)
Per Curiam
bers of the Court are agreed that we "should [not] mechanically accept any suggestion from the Solicitor General that a decision rendered in favor of the Government by a United States Court of Appeals was in error," Mariscal v. United States, 449 U. S. 405, 406 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). And the dissent acknowledges as "well entrenched," post, at 183 (opinion of Scalia, J.), our practice of GVR'ing in light of plausible confessions of error without determining their merits. Moreover, the dissent is ready in principle to GVR in light of a new agency interpretation of a statute that is entitled to deference under the rule of Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984). Post, at 186-187.
In other respects, however, our approaches to changes of position by litigants diverge. Justice Scalia's dissent disapproves (although it acknowledges) this Court's well-established practice of GVR'ing based on confessions of error that do not purport to concede the whole case. Post, at 183, 184-185; cf., e. g., Moore v. United States, 429 U. S. 20 (1976) (GVR'ing based on the Solicitor General's confession of error, notwithstanding the Solicitor General's unresolved claim that the error was harmless). The dissent would apparently insist that such GVR's be confined to cases in which the confession of error concerns a "legal point on which the lower court explicitly relied," or on which we otherwise "know" for certain that the lower court's judgment rested. Post, at 185. But, given the legitimacy of GVR's on the basis of confessions of error without determining the merits, we do not understand why a reasonable probability that the lower court relied on the point at issue should not suffice. As we have explained, supra, at 167, we have GVR'd on the basis of a reasonable probability of a change in result in nonconfession of error cases, see, e. g., Robinson v. Story, supra. We see no special reason why, in a confession of error case, a certainty that the lower court relied on the point in question should be necessary before we may GVR on the basis of a
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