author: Justice Kennedy Justice O’Connor, with whom Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join,

text:
    RAGSDALE et al. v. WOLVERINE WORLD WIDE, INC.
    No. 00-6029.
    Argued January 7, 2002 —
    Decided March 19, 2002

      L. Oneal Sutter argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Eric Schnapper.

      Malcolm L. Stewart argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Howard M. Radzely, Allen H. Feldman, Nathaniel I. Spiller, and Ellen L. Beard.

      Richard D. Bennett argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was James Francis Barna

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations et al. by Jonathan P. Hiatt, James B. Coppess, Judith L. Lichtman, and Laurence

        Gold; and for the National Employment Lawyers Association et al. by Ronald B. Schwartz and Paula A. Brantner.

        Ann Elizabeth Reesman, Daniel V. Yager, Stephen A. Bokat, Robin S. Conrad, and Heather L. MacDougall filed a brief for the Equal Employment Advisory Council et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.

        Jack Whitacre filed a brief for Human Resource Management as ami-cus curiae.

   Justice Kennedy

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Qualifying employees are guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year by the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA or Act), 107 Stat. 6, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 2601 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V). The Act encourages businesses to adopt more generous policies, and many employers have done so. Respondent Wolverine World Wide, Inc., for example, granted petitioner Tracy Ragsdale 30 weeks of leave when cancer kept her out of work in 1996. Ragsdale nevertheless brought suit under the FMLA. She alleged that because Wolverine was in technical violation of certain Labor Department regulations, she was entitled to more leave.

One of these regulations, 29 CFR § 825.700(a) (2001), did support Ragsdale’s claim. It required the company to grant her 12 more weeks of leave because it had not informed her that the 30-week absence would count against her FMLA entitlement. We hold that the regulation is contrary to the Act and beyond the Secretary of Labor’s authority. Rags-dale was entitled to no more leave, and Wolverine was entitled to summary judgment.

I

Ragsdale began working at a Wolverine factory in 1995, but in the following year she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. Her prescribed treatment involved surgery and months of radiation therapy. Though unable to work during this time, she was eligible for seven months of unpaid sick leave under Wolverine’s leave plan. Ragsdale requested and received a 1-month leave of absence on February 21, 1996, and asked for a 30-day extension at the end of each of the seven months that followed. Wolverine granted the first six requests, and Ragsdale missed 30 consecutive weeks of work. Her position with the company was held open throughout, and Wolverine maintained her health benefits and paid her premiums during the first six months of her absence. Wolverine did not notify her, however, that 12 weeks of the absence would count as her FMLA leave.

In September, Ragsdale sought a seventh 30-day extension, but Wolverine advised her that she had exhausted her seven months under the company plan. Her condition persisted, so she requested more leave or permission to work on a part-time basis. Wolverine refused and terminated her when she did not come back to work.

Ragsdale filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Her claim relied on the Secretary’s regulation, which provides that if an employee takes medical leave “and the employer does not designate the leave as FMLA leave, the leave taken does not count against an employee’s FMLA entitlement.” 29 CFR § 825.700(a) (2001). The required designation had not been made, so Ragsdale argued that her 30 weeks of leave did “not count against [her] FMLA entitlement.” Ibid. It followed that when she was denied additional leave and terminated after 30 weeks, the statute guaranteed her 12 more weeks. She sought reinstatement, backpay, and other relief.

When the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, Wolverine conceded it had not given Ragsdale specific notice that part of her absence would count as FMLA leave. It maintained, however, that it had complied with the statute by granting her 30 weeks of leave — more than twice what the Act required. The District Court granted summary judgment to Wolverine. In the court’s view the regulation was in conflict with the statute and invalid because, in effect, it required Wolverine to grant Ragsdale more than 12 weeks of FMLA-eompliant leave in one year. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed. 218 F. 3d 933 (2000).

We granted certiorari, 533 U. S. 928 (2001), and now affirm.

II

Wolverine’s challenge concentrates on the validity of a single sentence in § 825.700(a). This provision is but a small part of the administrative structure the Secretary devised pursuant to Congress’ directive to issue regulations “necessary to carry out” the Act. 29 U. S. C. § 2654 (1994 ed.). The Secretary’s judgment that a particular regulation fits within this statutory constraint must be given considerable weight. See United States v. O’Hagan, 521 U. S. 642, 673 (1997) (citing Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416, 424-426 (1977)). Our deference to the Secretary, however, has important limits: A regulation cannot stand if it is “ ‘arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute.’” United States v. O’Hagan, supra, at 673 (quoting Chevron U S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 844 (1984)). To determine whether § 825.700(a) is a valid exercise of the Secretary’s authority, we must consult the Act, viewing it as a “symmetrical and coherent regulatory scheme.” Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 569 (1995).

The FMLA’s central provision guarantees eligible employees 12 weeks of leave in a 1-year period following certain events: a disabling health problem; a family member’s serious illness; or the arrival of a new son or daughter. 29 U. S. C. § 2612(a)(1). During the mandatory 12 weeks, the employer must maintain the employee’s group health coverage. § 2614(c)(1). Leave must be granted, when “medically necessary,” on an intermittent or part-time basis. § 2612(b)(1). Upon the employee’s timely return, the employer must reinstate the employee to his or her former position or an equivalent. § 2614(a)(1). The Act makes it unlawful for an employer to “interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of” these rights, § 2615(a)(1), and violators are subject to consequential damages and appropriate equitable relief, § 2617(a)(1).

A number of employers have adopted policies with terms far more generous than the statute requires. Congress encouraged as much, mandating in the Act’s penultimate provision that “[njothing in this Act . . . shall be construed to discourage employers from adopting or retaining leave policies more generous than any policies that comply with the requirements under this Act.” §2653. Some employers, like Wolverine, allow more than the 12-week annual minimum; others offer paid leave. U. S. Dept, of Labor, D. Cantor et al., Balancing the Needs of Families and Employers: Family and Medical Leave Surveys 5-10,5-12 (2001) (22.9% of FMLA-covered establishments allow more than 12 weeks of leave per year; 62.7% provide paid disability leave). As long as these policies meet the Act’s minimum requirements, leave taken may be counted toward the 12 weeks guaranteed by the FMLA. See 60 Fed. Reg. 2230 (1995) (“[Ejmployers may designate paid leave as FMLA leave and offset the maximum entitlements under the employer’s more generous policies”).

With this statutory structure in place, the Secretary issued regulations requiring employers to inform their workers about the relationship between the FMLA and leave granted under company plans. The regulations make it the employer’s responsibility to tell the employee that an absence will be considered FMLA leave. 29 CFR § 825.208(a) (2001). Employers must give written notice of the designation, along with detailed information concerning the employee’s rights and responsibilities under the Act, “within a reasonable time after notice of the need for leave is given by the employee — within one or two business days if feasible.” § 825.301(c).

The regulations are in addition to a notice provision explicitly set out in the statute. Section 2619(a) requires employers to “keep posted, in conspicuous places . . . , a notice . . . setting forth excerpts from, or summaries of, the pertinent provisions of this subchapter and information pertaining to the filing of a charge.” According to the Secretary, the more comprehensive and individualized notice required by the regulations is necessary to ensure that employees are aware of their rights when they take leave. See 60 Fed. Reg. 2220 (1995). We need not decide today whether this conclusion accords with the text and structure of the FMLA, or whether Congress has instead “spoken to the precise question” of notice, Chevron, supra, at 842, and so foreclosed the notice regulations. Even assuming the additional notice requirement is valid, the categorical penalty the Secretary imposes for its breach is contrary to the Act’s remedial design.

The penalty is set out in a separate regulation, §825.700, which is entitled “What if an employer provides more generous benefits than required by the FMLA?” This is the sentence on which Ragsdale relies:

“If an employee takes paid or unpaid leave and the employer does not designate the leave as FMLA leave, the leave taken does not count against an employee’s FMLA entitlement.” 29 CFR § 825.700(a) (2001).

This provision punishes an employer’s failure to provide timely notice of the FMLA designation by denying it any credit for leave granted before the notice. The penalty is unconnected to any prejudice the employee might have suffered from the employer’s lapse. If the employee takes an undesignated absence of 12 weeks or more, the regulation always gives him or her the right to 12 more weeks of leave that year. The fact that the employee would have acted in the same manner if notice had been given is, in the Secretary’s view, irrelevant. Indeed, as we understand the Secretary’s position, the employer would be required to grant the added 12 weeks even if the employee had full knowledge of the FMLA and expected the absence to count against the 12-week entitlement. An employer who denies the employee this additional leave will be deemed to have violated the employee’s rights under §2615 and so will be liable for damages and equitable relief under §2617.

The categorical penalty is incompatible with the FMLA’s comprehensive remedial mechanism. To prevail under the cause of action set out in §2617, an employee must prove, as a threshold matter, that the employer violated §2615 by interfering with, restraining, or denying his or her exercise of FMLA rights. Even then, § 2617 provides no relief unless the employee has been prejudiced by the violation: The employer is liable only for compensation and benefits lost “by reason of the violation,” § 2617(a)(l)(A)(i)(I), for other monetary losses sustained “as a direct result of the violation,” §2617(a)(l)(A)(i)(II), and for “appropriate” equitable relief, including employment, reinstatement, and promotion, § 2617(a)(1)(B). The remedy is tailored to the harm suffered. Cf. EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc., 534 U. S. 279,292-293 (2002) (provisions in Title VII stating that plaintiffs “may recover” damages and “appropriate” equitable relief “refer to the trial judge’s discretion in a particular case to order reinstatement and award damages in an amount warranted by the facts of that case”).

Section 825.700(a), Ragsdale contends, reflects the Secretary’s understanding that an employer’s failure to comply with the designation requirement might sometimes burden an employee’s exercise of basic FMLA rights in violation of § 2615. Consider, for instance, the right under § 2612(b)(1) to take intermittent leave when medically necessary. An employee who undergoes cancer treatments every other week over the course of 12 weeks might want to work during the off weeks, earning a paycheck and saving six weeks for later. If she is not informed that her absence qualifies as FMLA leave — and if she does not know of her right under the statute to take intermittent leave — she might take all 12 of her FMLA-guaranteed weeks consecutively and have no leave remaining for some future emergency. In circumstances like these, Ragsdale argues, the employer’s failure to give the notice required by the regulation could be said to “deny,” “restrain,” or “interfere with” the employee’s exercise of her right to take intermittent leave.

This position may be reasonable, but the more extreme one embodied in § 825.700(a) is not. The penalty provision does not say that in certain situations an employer’s failure to make the designation will violate §2615 and entitle the employee to additional leave. Rather, the regulation establishes an irrebuttable presumption that the employee’s exercise of FMLA rights was impaired — and that the employee deserves 12 more weeks. There is no empirical or logical basis for this presumption, as the facts of this case well demonstrate. Ragsdale has not shown that she would have taken less leave or intermittent leave if she had received the required notice. As the Court of Appeals noted — and Ragsdale did not dispute in her petition for certiorari— “Ragsdale’s medical condition rendered her unable to work for substantially longer than the FMLA twelve-week period.” 218 F. 3d, at 940. In fact her physician did not clear her to work until December, long after her 30-week leave period had ended. Even if Wolverine had complied with the notice regulations, Ragsdale still would have taken the entire 30-week absence. Blind to this reality, the Secretary’s provision required the company to grant Ragsdale 12 more weeks of leave — and rendered it liable under § 2617 when it denied her request and terminated her.

The challenged regulation is invalid because it alters the FMLA’s cause of action in a fundamental way: It relieves employees of the burden of proving any real impairment of their rights and resulting prejudice. In the case at hand, the regulation permitted Ragsdale to bring suit under § 2617, despite her inability to show that Wolverine’s actions restrained her exercise of FMLA rights. Section 825.700(a) transformed the company’s failure to give notice — along with its refusal to grant her more than 30 weeks of leave — into an actionable violation of §2615. This regulatory sleight of hand also entitled Ragsdale to reinstatement and back-pay, even though reinstatement could not be said to be “appropriate” in these circumstances and Ragsdale lost no compensation “by reason of” Wolverine’s failure to designate her absence as FMLA leave. By mandating these results absent a showing of consequential harm, the regulation worked an end run around important limitations of the statute’s remedial schemé.

In defense of the regulation, the Government notes that a categorical penalty requiring the employer to grant more leave is easier to ádminister than one involving a fact-specific inquiry into what steps the employee would have taken had the employer given the required notice. “Regardless of how serious the problem an administrative agency seeks to address, however, it may not exercise its authority fin a manner that is inconsistent with the administrative structure that Congress enacted into law.’ ” FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 125 (2000) (quoting ETSI Pipeline Project v. Missouri, 484 U. S. 495, 517 (1988)). By its nature, the remedy created by Congress requires the retrospective, case-by-case examination the Secretary now seeks to eliminate. The purpose of the cause of action is to permit a court to inquire into matters such as whether the employee would have exercised his or her FMLA rights in the absence of the employer’s actions. To determine whether damages and equitable relief are appropriate under the FMLA, the judge or jury must ask what steps the employee would have taken had circumstances been different — considering, for example, when the employee would have returned to work after taking leave. Though the Secretary could not enact rules purporting to make these kinds of determinations for the courts, § 825.700(a) has this precise effect.

For this reason, the Government’s reliance upon Mourning v. Family Publications Service, Inc., 411 U. S. 356 (1973), is misplaced. Just as the FMLA does not itself require employers to give individualized notice, see supra, at 88, the Truth in Lending Act did not itself require lenders to make certain disclosures mandated by the regulation at issue in Mourning. In sustaining the regulation, we observed that the disclosure requirement was not contrary to the statute and that the Federal Reserve Board’s rulemaking authority was much broader than the Secretary’s is here. See 411 U. S., at 361-362 (quoting 15 U. S. C. §1604 (1970 ed.) (empowering the Board to issue regulations not only necessary “to carry out the purposes of [the statute],” but also “necessary or proper ... to prevent circumvention or evasion [of the statute], or to facilitate compliance therewith”)). The crucial distinction, however, is that although we referred to the Board’s regulation as a “remedial measure,” 411 U. S., at 371, the disclosure requirement was in fact enforced through the statute’s pre-existing remedial scheme and in a manner consistent with it. The Board simply assessed violators the $100 minimum statutory fine applicable to lenders who failed to make required disclosures. See id., at 376. In contrast, § 825.700(a) enforces the individualized notice requirement in a way that contradicts and undermines the FMLA’s preexisting remedial scheme. While §2617 says that employees must prove impairment of their statutory rights and resulting harm, the Secretary’s regulation instructs the courts to ignore this command. Our previous decisions, Mourning included, do not authorize agencies to contravene Congress’ will in this manner.

Furthermore, even if the Secretary were authorized to reconfigure the FMLA’s cause of action for her administrative convenience, this particular rule would be an unreasonable choice. As we have noted in other contexts, categorical rules — such as the rule of per se antitrust illegality — reflect broad generalizations holding true in so many cases that inquiry into whether they apply to the case at hand would be needless and wasteful. Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 50, n. 16 (1977); Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U. S. 451, 486-487 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting). When the generalizations fail to hold in the run of cases — when, for example, a particular restraint of trade does not usually present a pronounced risk of injury to competition — the justification for the categorical rule disappears. See, e. g., State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U. S. 3, 8-22 (1997) (rejecting per se ban on vertical maximum price fixing). That said, the generalization made by the Secretary’s categorical penalty — that the proper redress for an employer’s violation of the notice regulations is a full 12 more weeks of leave — holds true in but few cases. The employee who would have taken the absence anyway, of course, would need no more leave; but the regulation provides 12 additional weeks. Even the employee who would have chosen to work on an intermittent basis — say, every other week, see supra, at 89-90 — could claim an entitlement not to 12 weeks of leave but instead to the 6 weeks he or she would not have taken. To be sure, 12 more weeks might be an appropriate make-whole remedy for an employee who would not have taken any leave at all if the notice had been given. It is not a “fair assumption,” United States v. O’Hagan, 521 U. S., at 676, however, that this fact pattern will occur in any but the most exceptional of cases.

To the extent the Secretary’s penalty will have no substantial relation to the harm suffered by the employee in the run of cases, it also amends the FMLA’s most fundamental substantive guarantee — the employee’s entitlement to “a total of 12 workweeks of leave during any 12-month period.” § 2612(a)(1). Like any key term in an important piece of legislation, the 12-week figure was the result of compromise between groups with marked but divergent interests in the contested provision. Employers wanted fewer weeks; employees wanted more. See H. R. Rep. No. 102-135, pt. 1, p. 37 (1991). Congress resolved the conflict by choosing a middle ground, a period considered long enough to serve “the needs of families” but not so long that it would upset “the legitimate interests of employers.” § 2601(b).

Courts and agencies must respect and give effect to these sorts of compromises. Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 447 U. S. 807, 818-819 (1980). The Secretary’s chosen penalty subverts the careful balance, for it gives certain employees a right to more than 12 weeks of FMLA-compliant leave in a given 1-year period. This is so in part because the employee will often enjoy every right guaranteed by the FMLA during part or all of an undesignated absence. Under the Secretary’s regulations, moreover, employers must comply with the FMLA’s minimum requirements during these un-designated periods. See, e.g., 29 CFR § 825.208(c) (2001) (an employee on paid leave “is subject to the full protections of the Act” during “the absence preceding the notice to the employee of the [FMLA] designation”). Here, the Secretary required Wolverine to maintain Ragsdale’s health benefits for at least 12 weeks of her 30-week absence; if it had not, Ragsdale could have sued. The penalty provision, in turn, required the company to grant Ragsdale 12 more weeks after the 30 weeks had passed. Section 2654 merely authorizes the Secretary to issue rules “necessary to carry out” the Act, but these regulations extended Wolverine’s liability far beyond the 12-week total guaranteed by the statute. It is no answer to say, as the Government does, that the Secretary’s provision is consistent with the Act because employers must provide more than 12 weeks of leave only when they do not comply with the individualized notice requirement. If this argument carried the day, a penalty of 24 weeks— or 36, or 48 — would also be permissible. Just as those provisions would be contrary to the FMLA’s 12-week mandate, so is § 825.700(a).

That the Secretary’s penalty is disproportionate and inconsistent with Congress’ intent is evident as well from the sole notice provision in the Act itself. As noted above, § 2619 directs employers to post a general notice informing employees of their FMLA rights. See supra, at 88. This provision sets out its own penalty for noncompliance: “Any employer that willfully violates this section may be assessed a civil monetary penalty not to exceed $100 for each separate offense.” § 2619(b). Congress believed that a $100 fine, enforced by the Secretary, was the appropriate penalty for willful violations of the only notice requirement specified in the statute. The regulation, in contrast, establishes a much heavier sanction, enforced not by the Secretary but by employees, for both willful and inadvertent violations of a supplemental notice requirement.

Section 825.700(a) is also in considerable tension with the statute’s admonition that “[n]othing in this Act. . . shall be construed to discourage employers from adopting or retaining leave policies more generous than any policies that comply with the requirements under this Act.” §2653. The FMLA was intended to pull certain employers up to the minimum standard, but Congress was well aware of the danger that it might push more generous employers down to the minimum at the same time. Technical rules and burdensome administrative requirements, Congress knew, might impose unforeseen liabilities and discourage employers from adopting policies that varied much from the basic federal requirements.

Although § 825.700(a) itself is directed toward employers “providing] more generous benefits than required by the FMLA,” its severe and across-the-board penalty could cause employers to discontinue these voluntary programs. Compliance with the designation requirement is easy enough for companies meeting only the minimum federal requirements: All leave is given the FMLA designation. Matters are quite different for companies like Wolverine, which offer more diverse and expansive options to their employees. In addition to allowing more than 12 weeks of leave per year, these employers might also provide leave for non-FMLA reasons, or to employees who are not yet FMLA eligible — leave the Secretary may not permit to be designated as FMLA leave. See, e. g., 60 Fed. Reg. 2230 (1995) (“Leave granted under circumstances that do not meet . . . specified reasons for FMLA-qualifying leave may not be counted against [the] FMLA’s 12-week entitlement”). Those employers must decide, almost as soon as leave is requested, whether to designate the absence as FMLA leave. The answer might not always be obvious, and this decision may require substantial investigation. The regulation imposes a high price for a good-faith but erroneous characterization of an absence as non-FMLA leave, and employers like Wolverine might well conclude that the simpler, less generous route is the preferable one.

These considerations persuade us that § 825.700(a) effects an impermissible alteration of the statutory framework and cannot be within the Secretary’s power to issue regulations “necessary to carry out” the Act under §2654. In so holding we do not decide whether the notice and designation requirements are themselves valid or whether other means of enforcing them might be consistent with the statute. Whatever the bounds of the Secretary’s discretion on this matter, they were exceeded here. The FMLA guaranteed Ragsdale 12 — not 42 — weeks of leave in 1996.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

Justice O’Connor, with whom Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join,

dissenting.

The Court today holds that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA or Act), 29 U. S. C. §2601 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V), clearly precludes the Secretary of Labor from adopting a rule requiring an. employer to give an employee notice that leave is FMLA qualifying before the leave may be counted against the employer’s 12-week obligation. Because I believe the Secretary is justified in requiring such individualized notice and because I think that nothing in the Act constrains the Secretary’s ability to secure compliance with that requirement by refusing to count the leave against the employer’s statutory obligation, I respectfully dissent.

I

I begin with the question the Court set aside, see ante, at 88, whether the Secretary was justified in requiring individualized notice at all. The FMLA gives the Secretary the notice and comment rulemaking authority to “prescribe such regulations as are necessary to carry out” the Act. 29 U. S. C. § 2654 (1994 ed.). In light of this explicit congressional delegation of rulemaking authority, we must uphold the Secretary’s regulations unless they are “arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute.” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 844 (1984).

The Secretary has reasonably determined that individualized notice is necessary to implement the FMLA’s provisions. According to the Secretary, to fulfill the FMLA’s purposes, employees need to be aware of their rights and responsibilities under the Act. See 60 Fed. Reg. 2220 (1995) (“The intent of this notice requirement is to insure employees receive the information necessary to enable them to take FMLA leave”). Although the Act requires that each employer post a general notice of FMLA rights, 29 U. S. C. § 2619(a), the provision of individualized notice provides additional assurance that employees taking leave are aware of their rights under the Act. Individualized notice reminds employees of the existence of the Act and its protections at the very moment they become relevant. See also 29 CFR § 825.301(b)(1) (2001) (notice must also include information about various FMLA rights and obligations).

Perhaps more importantly, individualized notice indicates to employees that the Act applies to them specifically. To trigger employers’ FMLA obligations, employees need not explicitly assert their rights under the Act; they must only inform their employers of their reasons for seeking leave. See § 825.208(a)(2). They may not be aware that their leave is protected under the FMLA. For many employees, the individualized notice required by the Secretary may therefore be their first opportunity to learn that their leave is in fact protected by the FMLA. This not only assists employees in enforcing their entitlement to 12 weeks of leave, but also helps them take advantage of their other rights under the Act (such as their right to take intermittent leave, 29 U. S. C. § 2612(b)(1), or to substitute accrued paid leave, § 2612(b)(2)), and facilitates their enforcement of the employer’s other obligations (such as the obligation to continue health insurance coverage during FMLA leave, § 2614(c)(1), and the obligation to restore the employee to a position upon return from leave, § 2614(a)).

Individualized notice also informs employees whether the employer plans to provide FMLA and employer-sponsored leave consecutively or concurrently. This can facilitate leave planning, allowing employees to organize their health treatments or family obligations around the total amount of leave they will ultimately be provided.

Given these reasons, the Secretary’s decision to require individualized notice is not arbitrary and capricious. Respondent does not disagree, instead arguing that, whether or not these reasons are valid, requiring individualized notice is contrary to the Act. Because the Act explicitly requires other sorts of notice, such as the requirement that the employer post a general notice, § 2619(a), and requirements that an employee notify the employer of the need for or reasons for FMLA leave, §§ 2612(e)(1), 2613, respondent argues that Congress intended that the Secretary not enact any other notice requirements.

The Act, however, provides no indication that its notice provisions are intended to be exclusive. Nor does it make sense for them to be so. Different notice requirements serve different functions. The requirement that employees notify their employers of their reasons for leave, for instance, informs employers that their obligations have been triggered and allows them to use the certification mechanisms provided in the Act. § 2613. The requirement that employees give advance notice when leave is foreseeable, § 2612(e)(1), facilitates employer planning. That the Act provides for notice to further these objectives indicates nothing about whether the Secretary may permissibly use the same tool to further different ends.

Even the provision that may seem most similar, the general notice requirement, § 2619(a), serves a significantly different purpose than the Secretary’s requirement. Although both inform employees of their rights under the Act, the general notice requirement is particularly useful to employees who might otherwise never approach their employer with a leave request, while the individualized notice requirement is targeted at employees after they have informed the employer of their request for leave. Moreover, even if the purposes of both sorts of notice were identical, it is not at all clear that, by providing for one sort of notice to further these objectives, Congress intended to preclude the Secretary from bolstering this purpose with an additional notice requirement. I therefore conclude that nothing in the Act precludes the Secretary from accomplishing her goals through a requirement of individualized notice.

II

Also at issue before the Court is whether the Secretary may secure compliance with the individualized notice requirement by providing that leave will not count against the employer’s 12-week obligation unless the employer fulfills this requirement. The Court concludes that this means of securing compliance is inconsistent with the cause of action the Act provides when employers “interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of or the attempt to exercise, any right provided under this subchapter.” 29 U. S. C. § 2615. The Court appears to see two different kinds of conflict. At times, the Court seems to suggest that, insofar as the purpose of the individualized notice requirement is to enable the employee to enforce the Act’s specific protections (such as the right to be reinstated at the end of the leave period), the Act restricts employees to bringing §2615 actions to redress violations of these protections and not the notice requirement itself. See ante, at 91 (The Secretary’s penalty provision “transformed the company’s failure to give notice . . . into an actionable violation of §2615”). Under that section, employees bear the burden of proving the violation, and their recovery is limited to whatever damages they can show they have suffered because of the employer’s violation. §2617 (1994 ed. and Supp. V).

If this is in fact the Court’s view, it would effectively eviscerate the individualized notice requirement. Under such a scheme, an employer could feel no obligation to provide individualized notice, only an obligation to refrain from otherwise violating the Act’s other provisions. This would seriously impede the Secretary’s goals. While the fear of litigation under § 2615 might go some way toward deterring employers from, for instance, failing to reinstate employees who have taken leave or discontinuing their health insurance while they are on leave, it would do so less effectively than if employees were explicitly informed that their leave was FMLA qualifying at the moment it was taken. More importantly, the potential for §2615 liability would do nothing to fiirther some of the Secretary’s other goals, such as making employees aware that the range of options provided by the FMLA is available to them. Without individualized notice, for instance, employees may not be made aware that they have the option of requesting intermittent leave, § 2612(b)(1), or the option of asking the employer to substitute accrued paid vacation or sick leave for unpaid FMLA leave, § 2612(b)(2). An employer may only be liable under §2615 for denying these options if the employee knows enough to request them. A rule that would restrict FMLA remedies to violations of §2615 based on denials of other statutorily protected rights would thus be equivalent to denying the Secretary the power to enforce an individualized notice requirement at all. Because I believe the individualized notice requirement is justified, and because the Secretary’s power to create such a requirement must also include a power to enforce it in some way, this extreme view of the Act’s remedial scheme should be rejected.

At other times, however, the Court suggests a less extreme view — that the Secretary may be allowed to require individualized notice, but that the remedy for failing to give such notice must also lie under §2615, requiring the employee to prove harm from the employer’s failure to notify. See ante, at 91 (suggesting that the appropriate rule is one “involving a fact-specific inquiry into what steps the employee would have taken had the employer given the required notice”). This was the approach adopted by the Court of Appeals, allowing recovery when an “employer’s failure to give notice ... interfere^] with or [denies] an employee’s substantive FMLA rights.” 218 F. 3d 933, 939 (CA8 2000).

But there is no reason to restrict the Secretary’s remedy to § 2615 actions. The Secretary is charged with adopting regulations that are “necessary to carry out” the Act. §2654. This includes the power to craft appropriate remedies for regulatory violations. In Mourning v. Family Publications Service, Inc., 411 U. S. 356 (1973), where the Federal Reserve Board was empowered to “prescribe regulations to carry out the purposes of” the Truth in Lending Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1604, this Court deferred to its choice of remedies, asserting that “[w]e have consistently held that where reasonable minds may differ as to which of several remedial measures should be chosen, courts should defer to the informed experience and judgment of the agency to whom Congress delegated appropriate authority.” 411 U. S., at 371-372.

Just as the fact that the Act provides for certain sorts of notice does not preclude the Secretary from providing for other sorts, the fact that the Act provides for certain remedies does not tie the hands of the Secretary to provide for others. The Court’s argument to the contrary seems to be based on something like the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius — that Congress’ decision to provide for one remedy indicates that it did not intend for the Secretary to have authority to create any others. Because of the deference given to agencies on matters about which the statutes they administer are silent, Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, however, expressio unius ought to have somewhat reduced force in this context. See Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. v. Legal Servs. Corp., 940 F. 2d 685, 694 (CADC 1991). For example, in Mourning, this Court deferred to the agency’s decision to impose a set fine on lenders who violated a regulation, rejecting the argument that, because the Truth in Lending Act provided for one sort of remedy, the agency lacked authority to impose any other sort of penalty. Although the penalty was set in an amount equal to the minimum fine set forth in the statute, it clearly went beyond the statute’s remedial scheme, which required that damages be set in an amount related to the lender’s finance charge. Cf. ante, at 92. In so holding, we stated:

“[T]he objective sought in delegating rulemaking authority to an agency is to relieve Congress of the impossible burden of drafting a code explicitly covering every conceivable future problem. Congress cannot then be required to tailor civil penalty provisions so as to deal precisely with each step which the agency thereafter finds necessary.” 411 U. S., at 376.

Moreover, the Act itself provides some remedies that fall outside the framework of 29 U. S. C. § 2615 — for instance, the fine for failure to post a general notice of FMLA rights, § 2619(b). This confirms that §2615 is not intended to be the exclusive remedy for violations of the Act or its implementing regulations. Respondent conceded at oral argument that the Secretary could secure compliance with the individual notice requirement through establishment of a fine, a remedy that goes beyond § 2615. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28. If the Secretary may enforce her regulations with a fine, what in the Act precludes her from enforcing them as appropriate through a range of remedies, such as treble damages, cease and desist orders punishable by contempt, or, in this case, additional leave?

The Court further claims that, even if the Secretary has the power to craft her own remedy for violation of the regulation, the particular remedy she has chosen is unreasonable. See ante, at 92-93. The Court does not take issue with the reasonableness of a categorical remedy, one that is not necessarily tailored to the individual loss of each litigant. See Mourning, supra, at 377 (approving of such “prophylactic” rules). The Court’s argument is instead based on its assertion that the categorical remedy the Secretary has chosen is too harsh. In the Court’s judgment, 12 weeks of additional leave is too great a punishment because few employees will have actually suffered this much harm from the employer’s failure to give individualized notice. See ante, at 93.

We are bound, however, to defer to the Secretary’s judgment of the likely harms of lack of notice so long as it is reasonable. I believe that it is. The Secretary has determined that a variety of purposes will be served through individualized notice, including facilitating employee planning, and enabling enforcement of the Act’s protections and use of its various options by making employees aware that their leave is FMLA qualifying at the moment they take it. For those employees who ultimately bring suit for denial of notice, it is difficult to quantify their damages retrospectively — it requires knowing not only what options an employee would have been likely to take had notice been given, but also the extent to which that employee’s ability to plan leave was compromised. Moreover, an employer’s failure to give individualized notice may itself cause some employees (unaware that their leave is FMLA qualifying) not to bring suit at all. I therefore see no reason to doubt the Secretary’s judgment that 12 additional weeks of leave is an appropriate penalty for failing to provide individualized notice.

The Court further suggests that the Secretary’s remedy is contrary to the statute in two other ways. First, it claims that the penalty would exceed the FMLA’s guarantee of 12 weeks of leave under §§ 2612(a)(1) and (d)(1). See ante, at 93-94. But nothing requires an employer to provide more than 12 weeks of leave — an employer may avoid this penalty by following the regulation. The penalty the Secretary has chosen no more extends an employer’s obligations under the Act than would any fine or other remedy for a violation of those obligations. Nor, as the Court notes, would a longer penalty violate this aspect of the Act. See ante, at 94. To the extent that an even lengthier penalty would be inappropriate, it would be because it is unreasonable, not because it is contrary to the Act’s 12-week allotment.

Moreover, providing this notice is not at all onerous. In most situations, notice will require nothing more than informing the employee of what the employer already knows: that the leave is FMLA qualifying. The employer will eventually have to make this designation to comply with the Act’s recordkeeping requirements. 29 U. S. C. § 2616(b). At most, the regulation moves up the time of this designation. When an employer is unsure at the time the leave begins whether it qualifies, the regulations allow an interim designation followed by later confirmation. 29 CFR § 825.208(e)(2) (2001). This is hardly the “high price” of which the Court complains. See ante, at 96.

Second, the Court claims that the penalty would discourage employers from voluntarily providing more leave than the FMLA requires, contrary to the Act’s assertion that “[n]othing in this Act . . . shall be construed to discourage employers from adopting or retaining [more generous] leave policies,” §2653. See ante, at 95. This section sets out a general interpretive principle, however, and should not be construed as removing from the Secretary the power to craft any regulation that might have even a small discouraging effect, no matter how otherwise important. Moreover, because of the ease with which an employer may meet its obligation to provide individualized notice, this effect will be minimal.

For these reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for appropriate proceedings.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author:
Justice Souter Justice Thomas,
      Justice O’Connor,

license: Public Domain

text:
    EDELMAN v. LYNCHBURG COLLEGE
    No. 00-1072.
    Argued January 8, 2002 —
    Decided March 19,2002

      Eric Schnapper argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Elaine Charlson Bredehoft.

      Lisa S. Blatt argued the cause for the United States et al. as amici curiae urging reversal. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General Boyd, Deputy Solicitor General Clement, Paul R. Q. Wolf son, Philip B. Sklover, and Barbara L. Sloan.

      Alexander W. Bell argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Mary V. Barney.

        Ann Elizabeth Reesman and Rae T. Vann filed a brief for the Equal Employment Advisory Council as amicus curiae urging affirmance.

        Paula A Brantner filed a brief for the National Employment Lawyers Association as amicus curiae.

   Justice Souter

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The scheme of redress for employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, requires a complainant to file a “charge” with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within a certain time after the conduct alleged, 78 Stat. 259, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(e)(1) (1994 ed.), and to affirm or swear that the allegations are true, §2000e-5(b). The issue here is the validity of an EEOC regulation permitting an otherwise timely filer to verify a charge after the time for filing has expired. We sustain the regulation.

I

On June 6,1997, respondent Lynchburg College denied academic tenure to petitioner Leonard Edelman, who faxed a letter to an EEOC field office on November 14, 1997, claiming “gender-based employment discrimination, exacerbated by discrimination on the basis of... national origin and religion.” App. 52. Edelman made no oath or affirmation.

On November 26,1997, Edelman’s lawyer wrote to the field office requesting an interview with an EEOC investigator and stating his “understanding that delay occasioned by the interview will not compromise the filing date, which will remain as November 14, 1997.” Id., at 54. An EEOC employee replied to Edelman and advised him to arrange an interview with a member of the field office. Without referring to the lawyer’s letter, the employee reminded Edelman that “a charge of discrimination must be filed within the time limits imposed by law.” Id., at 57. In Edelman’s case, the filing period was 300 days after the alleged discriminatory practice.

After the interview, the EEOC sent Edelman a Form 5 Charge of Discrimination for him to review and verify by oath or affirmation. On April 15, 1998, 313 days after the June 6, 1997, denial of tenure, the EEOC received the verified Form 5, which it forwarded to the College for response. After completing an investigation, the EEOC issued Edel-man a notice of right to sue.

Edelman first sued in a Virginia state court on various state-law claims, but later added a cause of action under Title VII, 42 U. S. C. §2000e~2(a)(l). The College then removed the case to Federal District Court and moved to dismiss, claiming that Edelman’s failure to file the verified Form 5 with the EEOC within the applicable filing period was a bar to subject-matter jurisdiction. Edelman replied that his November 1997 letter was a timely filed charge and that under an EEOC regulation, 29 CFR § 1601.12(b) (1997), the verification on the Form 5 related back to the letter.

The District Court found, however, that the November letter was not a “charge” within the meaning of Title VII because neither Edelman nor the EEOC treated it as one, App. to Pet. for Cert. 22-24, with the consequence that there was no timely filing to which the verification on Form 5 could relate back. After finding no ground for equitable tolling of the filing requirements, the District Court dismissed the Title VII complaint and remanded the state-law claims. Id., at 24-25.

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. 228 F. 3d 503, 512 (CA4 2000). The majority held that the plain language of the statute foreclosed the EEOC regulation allowing a later oath to relate back to an earlier charge. The majority reasoned that the verification and filing provisions in §706 of Title VII were interdependent in defining “charge”: “Because a charge requires verification . . . , and because a charge must be filed within the limitations period, ... it follows that a charge must be verified within the limitations period.” Id., at 508..

Judge Luttig concurred only in the judgment. Id., at 512-513. He said that although the majority probably had “the better interpretation” of the statute, id., at 513, its reading of the filing and verification requirements as one was not compelled by the language, and the court was “bound to give deference” to the EEOC’s construction, ibid. He nonetheless joined in the judgment for the District Court’s reasons.

Because of a conflict among the Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari, 533 U. S. 928 (2001), and now reverse.

II

A

Section 706 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5, governs the filing of charges of discrimination with the EEOC. Section 706(b) requires “[c]harges” to “be in writing under oath or affirmation . . . containing] such information and ... in such form as the Commission requires.” § 2000e-5(b). Section 706(e)(1) provides that “[a] charge .. . shall be filed within one hundred and eighty [or in some cases, three hundred] days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” §2000e-5(e)(l).

Neither provision defines “charge,” which is likewise undefined elsewhere in the statute. Section 706(b) merely requires the verification of a charge, without saying when it must be verified; § 706(e)(1) provides that a charge must be filed within a given period, without indicating whether the charge must be verified when filed. Neither provision incorporates the other so as to give a definition by necessary implication.

The assumption of the Court of Appeals that the two provisions must be read as one, with “charge” defined as “under oath or affirmation,” was thus a structural and logical leap. Nor is the gap bridged by the rule of common sense that statutes are to be read as a whole, see United States v. Morton, 467 U. S. 822, 828 (1984). Although reading the two provisions together would not be facially inconsistent, doing that would ignore the two quite different objectives of the timing and verification requirements, which stand in the way of reading “charge” to subsume them both by definition. The point of the time limitation is to encourage a potential charging party to raise a discrimination claim before it gets stale, for the sake of a reliable result and a speedy end to any illegal practice that proves out. The verification requirement has the different object of protecting employers from the disruption and expense of responding to a claim unless a complainant is serious enough and sure enough to support it by oath subject to liability for perjury. This object, however, demands an oath only by the time the employer is obliged to respond to the charge, not at the time an employee files it with the EEOC. There is accordingly nothing plain in reading “charge” to require an oath by definition. Questionable would be the better word.

B

The statute is thus open to interpretation and the regulation addresses a legitimate question. Before we touch on the merits of the EEOC’s position, however, two threshold matters about the status of the regulation can be given short shrift. The first is whether the agency’s rulemaking exceeded its authority to adopt “suitable procedural regulations,” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-12(a), and instead addressed a substantive issue over which the EEOC has no rulemaking power, see EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 257 (1991); General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 141 (1976). Although the College argues that the EEOC’s regulation “alterfs] a substantive requirement included by Congress in the statute,” Brief for Respondent 32-33, this is really nothing more than a recast of the plain language argument; the College is merely restating the position we just rejected, that Congress defined “charge” as a verified accusation.

The other issue insignificant in this case, however prominent it is in much of the litigation that goes on over agency rulemaking, is the degree of deference owed to the regulation by reviewing courts. We agree with the Government as amicus that deference under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-844 (1984), does not necessarily require an agency’s exercise of express notice-and-comment rulemaking power, see Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 19, n. 11; we so observed in United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 230-231 (2001) (“[W]e have sometimes found reasons for Chevron deference even when no such administrative formality was required and none was afforded”). But there is no need to resolve any question of deference here. We find the EEOC rule not only a reasonable one, but the position we would adopt even if there were no formal rule and we were interpreting the statute from scratch. Because we so clearly agree with the EEOC, there is no occasion to defer and no point in asking what kind of deference, or how much.

c

A complaint to the EEOC starts the agency down the road to investigation, conciliation, and enforcement, and it is no small thing to be called upon to respond. As we said before, the verification provision is meant to provide some degree of insurance against catchpenny claims of disgruntled, but not necessarily aggrieved, employees. In requiring the oath or affirmation, however, Congress presumably did not mean to affect the nature of Title VII as “a remedial scheme in which laypersons, rather than lawyers, are expected to initiate the process.” EEOC v. Commercial Office Products Co., 486 U. S. 107,124 (1988); Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U. S. 522, 527 (1972). Construing § 706 to permit the relation back of an oath omitted from an original filing ensures that the lay complainant, who may not know enough to verify on filing, will not risk forfeiting his rights inadvertently. At the same time, the EEOC looks out for the employer’s interest by refusing to call for any response to an otherwise sufficient complaint until the verification has been supplied.

We would be hard pressed to take issue with the EEOC’s position after deciding Becker v. Montgomery, 532 U. S. 757 (2001), last Term. In that case, we considered whether the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 signature requirement entailed the dismissal of a notice of appeal that was timely filed in the district court but was not signed within the filing period. We held that while the timing and content requirements for the notice of appeal were “jurisdictional in nature,” nothing prevented later cure of the signature defect, 532 U. S., at 765. There is no reason to think that relation back of the oath here is any less reasonable than relation back of the signature in Becker. Both are aimed at stemming the urge to litigate irresponsibly, and if relation back is a good rule for courts of law, it would be passing strange to call it bad for an administrative agency. In fact, it would be passing strange to disagree with the EEOC even without Becker, for a long history of practice with oath requirements supports the relation-back cure.

Where a statute or supplemental rule requires an oath, courts have shown a high degree of consistency in accepting later verification as reaching back to an earlier, unverified filing. This background law not only persuades by its regularity over time but points to tacit congressional approval of the EEOC’s position, Congress being presumed to have known of this settled judicial treatment of oath requirements when it enacted and later amended Title VIL

This presumption is complemented by the fact that Congress amended Title VII several times without once casting doubt on the EEOC’s construction. During the debates over the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the text of the EEOC procedural regulations, including the predecessor of § 1601.12(b), was placed in the Congressional Record. 118 Cong. Rec. 718 (1972). By then the regulation was six years old, and had been upheld and applied by the federal courts. By amending the law without repudiating the regulation, Congress “suggests its consent to the Commission’s practice.” EEOC v. Associated Dry Goods Corp., 449 U. S. 590, 600, n. 17 (1981); see also EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., 466 U. S. 54, 69 (1984).

Ill

We accordingly hold the EEOC’s relation-back regulation to be an unassailable interpretation of §706 and therefore reverse. Our judgment does not, however, reach the conclusion drawn by the District Court, and the single judge ■ on the Court of Appeals, that Edelman’s letter was not a charge under the statute because neither he nor the EEOC treated it as one. It is enough to say here that at the factual level their view has some support. Although § 706(e)(1) of Title VII provides that the “notice of the charge . . . shall be served upon the person against whom such charge is made within ten days” of filing with the EEOC, 42 U. S. C. §§2000e-5(b) and (e)(1), the Government’s lawyer acknowledged at oral argument that the EEOC failed to “comply with its obligation to provide the employer with notice” within 10 days after receiving Edelman’s letter of November 14, 1997. Tr. of Oral Arg. 16. Edelman’s counsel agreed with the Government that the significance of the delayed notice to the College would be open on remand. Id., at 9-10, 17.

Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Thomas,

concurring.

Congress has authorized the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) “to issue, amend, or rescind suitable procedural regulations to carry out the provisions of [Title VII]. Regulations issued under this section shall be in conformity with the standards and limitations of” the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-12(a) (1994 ed.). The EEOC promulgated 29 CFR § 1601.12(b) (1997) pursuant to its clear statutory authority to issue procedural regulation’s. See § 1601.1 (“The regulations set forth . . . contain the procedures established by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for carrying out its responsibilities in the administration and enforcement of title VII ...” (emphasis added)). I concur because I read the Court’s opinion to hold that the EEOC possessed the authority to promulgate this procedural regulation, and that the regulation is reasonable, not proscribed by the statute, and issued in conformity with the APA.

Justice O’Connor,

with whom Justice Scalia joins,

concurring in the judgment.

The Court today holds that there is no need in this case to defer to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s regulation because the agency’s position is the one it “would adopt even if there were no formal rule and [the Court] were interpreting the statute from scratch.” Ante, at 114. I do not agree that the EEOC has adopted the most natural interpretation of Title VII’s provisions regarding the filing with the EEOC of charges of discrimination. See 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5 (1994 ed.). But, because the statute is at least somewhat ambiguous, I would defer to the agency’s interpretation. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-844 (1984); EEOC v. Commercial Office Products Co., 486 U. S. 107, 125 (1988) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“[B]eference [to the EEOC] is particularly appropriate on this type of technical issue of agency procedure”). I think the regulation, 29 CFR § 1601.12(b) (1997), should be sustained, on this alternative basis.

Title VII requires “charges” of discrimination to “be in writing under oath or affirmation.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(b). It also requires “charge[s]” to “be filed within one hundred and eighty [or in some circumstances three hundred] days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” § 2000e-5(e)(l). The most natural reading of these provisions is that the first is intended to be definitional, defining a “charge” as an allegation of discrimination made in writing under oath or affirmation. The second then specifies the time period in which such a verified charge must be filed. That Congress intended the provisions to be read together in this way is suggested by the fact that the two provisions are found in subsections of the same section of the statute. See Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 809 (1989) (“It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme”). Surprisingly, however, the Court holds that the best reading is precisely the opposite — -it says it “clearly agree[s] with the EEOC” that charges do not need to be verified within the specified time period. See ante, at 114.

Despite the fact that I think the best reading of the statute is that a charge must be made under oath or affirmation within the specified time, this is not the only possible reading of the statute. The definition section of the statute, 42 U. S. C. §2000e, which expressly defines a number of terms, does not define the word “charge” to mean an allegation made under oath or affirmation. In fact, the definition section does not define the word “charge” at all. And the provision stating that “charges shall be in writing under oath or affirmation” is not framed as a definition — it does not say, for example, that a charge is an allegation made in writing under oath or affirmation. Because the statute does not explicitly define “charge” to incorporate verification but only suggests it, the requirement that charges be verified and the requirement that charges be filed within the specified time could be read as independent requirements that do not need to be satisfied simultaneously. Congress, therefore, cannot be said to have “unambiguously expressed [its] intent” that the charge must be under oath or affirmation when filed. Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843 (emphasis added). Given this ambiguity, under our decision in Chevron, “the question . . . [becomes] whether the agency’s [position] is based on a permissible construction of the statute,” ibid., or, in other words, whether the agency’s position is “reasonable,” id., at 845. If so, then we must give it “controlling weight,” id., at 844.

I find the regulation to be reasonable for some of the same reasons that the Court finds it to be the best interpretation of the statute. As the Court notes, Title VII is “ 'a remedial scheme in which laypersons, rather than lawyers, are expected to initiate the process.’ ” Ante, at 115 (quoting Com mercial Office Products Co., supra, at 124). Permitting relation back of an oath omitted from an original filing is reasonable because it helps ensure that lay complainants will not inadvertently forfeit their rights. The regulation is also consistent, as the Court explains, with the common-law practice of allowing later verifications to relate back. See ante, at 116-117. For these reasons, I think the regulation is reasonable and should be sustained.

The Court reserved the question of whether the EEOC’s regulation is entitled to Chevron deference. See ante, at 114. I doubt that it is possible to reserve this question while simultaneously maintaining, as the Court does, see ante, at 114-115, n. 8, that the agency is free to change its interpretation. To say that the matter is ambiguous enough to permit agency choice and to suggest that the Court would countenance a different choice is to say that the Court would (because it must) defer to a reasonable agency choice. Indeed, the concurring opinion that the Court cites for the proposition that the agency could change its position was premised on the idea that the agency was entitled to deference. See Commercial Office Products Co., supra, at 125-126 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).

I think the EEOC’s regulation is entitled to Chevron deference. We have, of course, previously held that because the EEOC was not given rulemaking authority to interpret the substantive provisions of Title VII, its substantive regulations do not receive Chevron deference, but instead only receive consideration according to the standards established in Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944). See EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 257 (1991) (“[T]he level of deference afforded [the agency’s judgment] ‘will depend upon the thoroughness evident in its consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with earlier and later pronouncements, and all those factors which give it power to persuade, if lacking power to control’”) (quoting Skidmore, supra, at 140); General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 141-142 (1976). The EEOC has, however, been given “authority from time to time to issue . . . suitable procedural regulations to carry out the provisions of” Title VII, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-12(a) (emphasis added). The regulation at issue here, which permits relation back of amendments to charges filed with the EEOC, is clearly such a procedural regulation. See, e. g., Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15 (establishing rules for amendments to pleadings and relation back as part of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure). Thus, as the Court recognizes, see ante, at 113-114, the EEOC was exercising authority explicitly delegated to it by Congress when it promulgated this rule.

The regulation was also promulgated pursuant to sufficiently formal procedures. Although the EEOC originally issued the regulation without undergoing formal notice- and-comment procedures, it was repromulgated pursuant to those procedures in 1977. See 42 Fed. Reg. 42022, 42023 (1977); id., at 55388, 55389. We recognized in United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218 (2001), that although notice-and-comment procedures are not required for Chevron deference, notice-and-comment is “significant ... in pointing to Chevron authority,” and that an “overwhelming number of our cases applying Chevron deference have reviewed the fruits of notice-and-comment rulemaking or formal adjudication.” 533 U. S., at 230-231. I see no reason why a re-promulgation pursuant to notice-and-comment procedures should be less entitled to deference than an original promulgation pursuant to those procedures. Cf. Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735, 741 (1996) (giving deference to “a full-dress regulation . . . adopted pursuant to the notice-and-comment procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act designed to assure ... deliberation” even though the regulation was prompted by litigation).

Moreover, the regulation is codified in the Code of Federal Regulations, 29 CFR § 1601.12(b) (1997),.and so is binding on all the parties coming before the EEOC, as well as on the EEOC itself. In this regard, it is distinguishable from the Customs Service ruling letters at issue in Mead Corp., supra, at 233, which we found not to be binding on third parties and to be changeable by the Customs Service merely upon notice, and to which we therefore denied Chevron deference. See also Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U. S.. 576, 587 (2000) (denying Chevron deference to an agency opinion letter that we suggested lacked “the force of law,” but stating that “the framework of deference set forth in Chevron does apply to an agency interpretation contained in a regulation”).

Because I believe the regulation is entitled to review under Chevron, and because the regulation is reasonable, I concur in the judgment.

       A Title VII complainant generally has 180 days from the time of the alleged unlawful employment practice to file with the EEOC, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(e)(l) (1994 ed.), but a 300-day filing period applies if the charging party “institute^] proceedings with a State or local agency with authority to grant or seek relief” from unlawful employment practices. Ibid.; see also EEOC v. Commercial Office Products Co., 486 U. S. 107, 110 (1988). Virginia has such an agency, operating under a work-sharing agreement with the EEOC. See Tinsley v. First Union Nat. Bank, 155 F. 3d 435, 439-442 (CA4 1998).

       The regulation provides in relevant part that “a charge is sufficient when the Commission receives from the person making the charge a written statement sufficiently precise to identify the parties, and to describe generally the action or practices complained of. A charge may be amended to cure technical defects or omissions, including failure to verify the charge, or to clarify and amplify allegations made therein. Such amendments and amendments alleging additional acts which constitute unlawful employment practices related to or growing out of the subject matter of the original charge will relate back to the date the charge was first received.”

       Section 706(b) reads in relevant part that “[wjhenever a charge is filed by or on behalf of a person claiming to be aggrieved, or by a member of the Commission, alleging that an employer . . . has engaged in an unlawful employment practice, the Commission shall serve a notice of the charge ... on such employer . . . within ten days, and shall make an investigation thereof. Charges shall be in writing under oath or affirmation and shall contain such information and be in such form as the Commission requires.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(b). As to filing, § 706(e)(1) provides that “[a] charge under this section shall be filed within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred and notice of the charge . . . shall be served upon the person against whom such charge is made within ten days thereafter, except that in a case of an unlawful employment practice with respect to which the person aggrieved has initially instituted proceedings with a State or local agency with authority to grant or seek relief from such practice ..., such charge shall be filed . . . within three hundred days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” § 2000e-5(e)(l).

       Compare, e. g., 228 F. 3d 503, 509 (CA4 2000) (case below); Shempert v. Harwick Chemical Corp., 151 F. 3d 793, 796-797 (CA8 1998), with Philbin v. General Electric Capital Auto Lease, Inc., 929 F. 2d 321, 323-324 (CA7 1991) (per curiam); Peterson v. Wichita, 888 F. 2d 1307, 1308 (CA10 1989), cert. denied, 495 U. S. 932 (1990); Casavantes v. California State Univ., 732 F. 2d 1441,1443 (CA9 1984); Price v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 687 F. 2d 74, 77, and n. 3 (CA5 1982).

       See Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U. S. 250, 256-257 (1980) (“Limitations periods, while guaranteeing the protection of the civil rights laws to those who promptly assert their rights, also protect employers from the burden of defending claims arising from employment decisions that are long past”).

       See EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., 466 U. S. 54, 76, n. 32 (1984) (“The function of an oath is to impress upon its taker an awareness of his duty to tell the truth”).

       Title VII does not require the EEOC to utilize notice-and-comment procedures. Section 713(a) of Title VII requires the procedural regulations to “be in conformity with the standards and limitations” of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §§551-559. 42 U. S. C. §2000e-12(a) (1994 ed.). And the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 553(b), excepts “rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice” from notice-and-comment procedures unless required by statute.

       We, of course, do not mean to say that the EEOC’s position is the “only one permissible.” See Commercial Office Products, 486 U. S., at 125 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The agency might, for example, have decided that the time to test the complainant’s seriousness is before the agency expends any effort on the case, and so have required a verified complaint prior to interview. JUSTICE O’Connor suggests, see post, at 122 (opinion concurring in judgment), that recognizing this implies that a sphere of deference is appropriate, and so resolves the Chevron question. But not all deference is deference under Chevron, see United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 234 (2001), and there is no need to resolve deference issues when there is no need for deference.

       The general practice of EEOC staff members is to prepare a formal charge of discrimination for the complainant to review and to verify, once the allegations have been clarified. See Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 24. The complainant must submit a verified charge before the agency will require a response from the employer. See Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae on Pet. for Cert. 16.
      Respondent argues that the employer will be prejudiced by these procedures because “there would be no deadline for verifying a charge.” Brief for Respondent 34, n. 26. But this is not our case, which simply challenges relation back per se, and our understanding is that the EEOC’s standard practice is to caution complainants that if they fail to follow up on their initial unverified charge, the EEOC will not proceed further with the complaint. See App. 57; Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae on Pet. for Cert. 17.

       We also note that Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits the relation back of amendments to pleadings under specified circumstances.

       See, e. g., Rule C(6) of the Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty and Maritime Claims (“[A] person who asserts an interest in or right against the property that is the subject of the [civil forfeiture] action must file a verified statement identifying the interest or right”).

       See, e.g., United States v. United States Currency in Amount of $103,387.27, 863 F. 2d 555,561-563 (CA7 1988); Johnston Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 175 F. 2d 351, 355-356 (CADC 1949); see also 5A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §1339, p. 150 (2d ed. 1990) (“Even if a federal rule or statute requires verification, a failure to comply does not render the document fatally defective”). In Armstrong v. Fernandez, 208 U. S. 324, 330 (1908), we approved a bankruptcy court’s allowance of nunc pro tunc verification of a petition filed under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898.
      State-court practice before and after Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been, for the greater part, the same as federal. See, e. g., United Farm Workers of Am. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., 37 Cal. 3d 912, 915, 694 P. 2d 138, 140 (1985) (en banc); Easter Seal Soc. for Disabled Children v. Berry, 627 A. 2d 482, 489 (D. C. 1993); Maliszewski v. Human Rights Comm’n, 269 Ill. App. 3d 472,474-477, 646 N. E. 2d 625, 626-628 (1995); Workman v. Workman, 46 N. E. 2d 718, 724 (Ind. App. 1943) (en banc); Pulliam v. Pulliam, 163 Kan. 497, 499-500, 183 P. 2d 220, 222-223 (1947); Southside Civic Assn. v. Warrington, 93-0890, pp. 3-4 (La. App. 4/1/94), 635 So. 2d 721, 723-724, pet. for writ denied, 94-1219 (La. 7/1/94), 639 So. 2d 1168; Drury Displays, Inc. v. Board of Adjustment, 760 S. W. 2d 112, 114 (Mo. 1998); Chisholm v. Vocational School for Girls, 103 Mont. 503, 506-509, 64 P. 2d 838, 841-842 (1936); In re Estate of Sessions, 217 Ore. 340, 347-349, 341 P. 2d 512, 516-517 (1959); State ex rel. Williams v. Jones, 164 S. W. 2d 823, 826 (Tenn. 1942); Greene v. Union Pac. Stages, Inc., 182 Wash. 143, 145, 45 P. 2d 611, 612 (1935). But see, e. g., Dinwiddie v. Board of County Comm’rs, 103 N. M. 442, 445, 708 P. 2d 1043, 1046 (1985), cert. denied, 476 U. S. 1117 (1986) (denying leave to amend and dismissing unverified complaint contesting election).

       See North Star Steel Co. v. Thomas, 515 U.S. 29, 34 (1995) (‘“[I]t is not only appropriate but also realistic to presume that Congress was thoroughly familiar with [our] precedents ... and that it expect[s] its enactment[s] to be interpreted in conformity with them’” (citation omitted)).

       See, e. g., Pub. L. 102-166,105 Stat. 1075; Pub. L. 92-261,86 Stat. 104.

       Respondent argues that the regulation became inconsistent with Title VII when Congress passed the 1972 amendments to the legislation. Brief for Respondent 20-25, 37. In 1972, during the floor debate over the Senate version (S. 2515) of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, Senator Allen noted that the committee amendments omitted the requirement that a charge be made under oath, and proposed an amendment to define a charge to “‘mean an accusation of discrimination supported by oath or affirmation.’ ” 118 Cong. Rec. 4815 (1972). The Senator expressed his view that the amendment preserved what he believed to be an existing requirement under the 1964 Act that “charges are to be filed and made under oath in writing.” Ibid. This understanding was neither confirmed nor denied, but Senator Williams, the bill’s floor manager, suggested that rather than the “one coverall, blanket” definition proposed by Senator Allen, the oath requirement could be included at the beginning of § 706(b). Ibid. So modified, the amendment was adopted by voice vote and enacted into law.
      Besides refining the language of §706 of Title VII, the 1972 amendments extended the basic time period for filing a charge with the EEOC from 90 to 180 days, and from 210 to 300 days in deferral States. Pub. L. 92-261, 86 Stat. 104. Congress also added a requirement that the EEOC notify employers within 10 days of receiving a filed charge. Ibid. In view of the above-described exchange over the phrasing of the verification requirement, and because Congress enacted this requirement while at the same time amending the charge-filing deadline in § 706(e), respondent advocates our reading the 1972 amendments as a “congressional compromise.” Brief for Respondent 24. We are asked, in other words, to conclude that Congress lengthened the time for filing charges only because Congress, at the same time, required that a charge necessarily be verified when first filed. The evidence for such a quid pro quo is, however, equivocal.

       See, e. g., Blue Bell Boots, Inc. v. EEOC, 418 F. 2d 355, 357 (CA6 1969); Georgia Power Co. v. EEOC, 412 F. 2d 462, 466-467 (CA5 1969); Weeks v. Southern Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 408 F. 2d 228, 230-231 (CA5 1969); Choate v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 402 F. 2d 357, 359-360 (CA7 1968).