ABSTRACT
This chapter examines court efforts to control agency action and the basic principles of law that govern judicial review of agency action. It examines two important general legal doctrines that, in part, govern that review. The first doctrine concerns the appropriate attitude of a reviewing court towards an agency's interpretations of law, such as the law embodied in the statute that grants the agency its legal powers. The second doctrine concerns a reviewing court's attitude toward an agency's regulatory policy. The chapter examines court's attitude when reviewing a claim that an agency's action violates a particular provision in a statute, or that it lacks a necessary statutory authorization. For the most part courts have used "legislative intent to delegate the law-interpreting function" as a kind of legal fiction. Courts will defer more when the agency has special expertise that it can bring to bear on the legal question.
