Cite as: 519 U. S. 248 (1997)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
Programs, 75 F. 3d 929, 932-934, 935, n. 7 (CA4), cert. denied, post, p. 812; Simpson v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 681 F. 2d 81, 82 (CA1 1982), cert. denied sub nom. Bath Iron Works Corp. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 459 U. S. 1127 (1983). The Court's attribution of the Board's order to the Department contradicts our recognition, only two Terms ago, that it is "quite simply contrary to the whole structure" of the LHWCA to view the Board's adjudicatory functions as the province of (implicitly) the Department as overarching agency and (explicitly) the Director as its delegate. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 514 U. S. 122, 134 (1995).
The second argument offered in support of the view that the Director is a proper respondent when review is sought of an order of the Board is that (1) Rule 15(a) requires the naming of someone representing the agency, and (2) the Director is certainly a more sensible candidate than the Board. Ante, at 267, 268. The second part of this analysis, the faute de mieux point, is questionable: The Board could readily develop a staff to defend its judgments, and it is hard to imagine a worse defender than an entity that is free to disagree (and often does disagree) with the order under review. Cf. Pittston Stevedoring Corp. v. Dellaventura, 544 F. 2d 35, 42, n. 5 (CA2 1976) (Friendly, J.) (suggesting that Board rather than Director is proper respondent), aff'd on other grounds sub nom. Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U. S. 249 (1977). But the real flaw in the reasoning is the first step, which assumes that when Rule 15(a) states that the "agency, board, commission, or officer" whose order is under review "must be named respondent," it means to confer upon such entities (or, in the Court's view, their parent agencies) a party status and litigating power they would not otherwise possess—so that a purely adjudicatory body with no policymaking responsibility, which would otherwise not be a party, is suddenly free to step in (perhaps through its
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