Lawrence v. Chater, 516 U.S. 163, 10 (1996) (per curiam)

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172

LAWRENCE v. CHATER

Per Curiam

reasonable probability that giving the lower court the opportunity to consider that point anew will alter the result.

Similarly, we reject Justice Scalia's dissent's other requirement of certainty for GVR's founded on a change of position by the Government. The dissent accepts in principle that a new interpretation of a statute adopted by the agency charged with implementing it may be entitled to deference in the context of litigation to which the Government is a party. But the dissent would require that before such new interpretation may be the basis for a GVR order, we must be "certain that the change in position is legally cognizable," post, at 187 (emphasis added), in the sense that it is "entitled to deference," post, at 188, despite its timing, in that particular case. This requirement, too, appears to be confined to cases in which the event on which the GVR is based is a change of position by the Government, see post, at 187; we do not, for example, understand the dissent to contend that a similar requirement of "lega[l] cognizab[ility]" should apply to GVR's in habeas corpus cases in which the procedural bar that we recognized in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), might apply. Again, we do not understand the rationale for imposing such special requirements on GVR's based on a change of position. If it appears reasonably probable that a confession of error reveals a genuine and potentially determinative error by the court below, a GVR may be appropriate; similarly, we believe that if an agency interpretation is reasonably probably entitled to deference and potentially determinative, we may GVR in light of it. It is precisely because of uncertainty that we GVR. We do not see why uncertainty as to the "lega[l] cognizab[ility]" of an agency interpretation in a particular case should be treated differently from uncertainty as to its application in that case. Indeed, to determine on the merits whether deference is owed to the agency interpretation, based on a circumstance—i. e., its timing with respect to the case at hand—that will not be present in any other case brought

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