Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital

Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 11, 1988 Decided December 12, 1988
Full case name	Otis R. Bowen, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Georgetown University Hospital, et al.
Docket no.	87-1097
Citations	488 U.S. 204 (more) 109 S. Ct. 468; 102 L. Ed. 2d 493; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 5554; 57 U.S.L.W.4057
Decision	Opinion
Case history
Prior	Judgment for plaintiff hospitals, 698 F. Supp. 290 (D.D.C. 1987); affirmed, 821 F.2d 750 (D.C. Cir. 1987); certiorari granted, 485 U.S. 903 (1988).
Holding
The cost-limit rule imposed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services is invalid because statutory grants of rulemaking authority should not be read to authorize the promulgation of retroactive rules unless expressly conveyed.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by unanimous
Concurrence	Scalia
Laws applied
Medicare Act Administrative Procedure Act

Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital, 488 U.S. 204 (1988), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that agencies should not be presumed to have the power to promulgate retroactive rules unless that power is expressly authorized by Congress.^[1] Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a unanimous court that the Secretary of Health and Human Services had exceeded his rulemaking authority under the Medicare Act in promulgating a wage index rule in 1984 under which he would recoup Medicare reimbursements paid to hospitals, including Georgetown University Hospital, that had been disbursed since 1981 according to the pre-1984 rule. Justice Antonin Scalia concurred in the judgment, writing separately that, in addition to the particular language of the Medicare Act, the Administrative Procedure Act more broadly prohibits retroactive rulemaking because it defines rules as having exclusively future effect, as opposed to adjudicative orders.