The Volokh Conspiracy
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Zombified
The first use of the term in a Supreme Court opinion, in today's concurrence by Justice Gorsuch in the administrative agency deference case.
From Kisor v. Wilkie:
The Court cannot muster even five votes to say that Auer [a precedent calling for courts to defer to administrative agencies' interpretations of their own opinions] is lawful or wise. Instead, a majority retains Auer only because of stare decisis. And yet, far from standing by that precedent, the majority proceeds to impose so many new and nebulous qualifications and limitations on Auer that the Chief Justice claims to see little practical difference between keeping it on life support in this way and overruling it entirely. So the doctrine emerges maimed and enfeebled—in truth, zombified.
