Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A.

Smiley v. Citibank
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 24, 1996 Decided June 3, 1996
Full case name	Barbara Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A.
Citations	517 U.S. 735 (more) 116 S. Ct. 1730; 135 L. Ed. 2d 25; 1996 U.S. LEXIS 3594
Case history
Prior	Class action complaint dismissed, Superior Court of California, affirmed by Court of Appeal, 26 Cal. App. 4th 1767, 32 Cal. Rptr. 2d 562 (1994); judgment affirmed, Supreme Court of California, 11 Cal. 4th 138, 900 P.2d 690 (1995); certiorari granted, 516 U.S. ___, (1995)
Holding
Comptroller of Currency regulation including credit card late fees and other penalties within the definition of interest was reasonable enough that Court defers to its expertise, thus individual states cannot limit them when charged by nationally-chartered banks
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinion
Majority	Scalia, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
National Banking Act

Smiley v. Citibank, 517 U.S. 735 (1996), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a regulation of the Comptroller of Currency which included credit card late fees and other penalties within the definition of interest and thus prevented individual states from limiting them when charged by nationally-chartered banks. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a unanimous court that the regulation was reasonable enough under the Court's own Chevron standard for the justices to defer to the Comptroller.

The decision, which had begun as a class action in California, was seen as a victory for banks and credit-card issuers, who could mostly charge late fees as they pleased. For that same reason consumer advocates were displeased, warning that late fees could rise to previously unseen levels. They did, and one of the Citibank attorneys has expressed regret for his involvement.^[1]