Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/299

 502us1$12J 08-21-96 15:26:33 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 129 (1991)

141

Blackmun, J., dissenting

adjudication “governed by” or “conducted under the authority of ” § 554. The Service emphasizes this Court’s holding in Marcello v. Bonds, 349 U. S. 302 (1955), that deportation proceedings are governed by the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, rather than by § 554 or other provisions of the APA. Accordingly, the INS contends, a deportation proceeding is not an adjudication “under section 554” and therefore is not an “adversary adjudication” within the meaning of the EAJA. The Court accepts this conclusion because it accepts the Service’s crucial assumption that the statutory words “under section 554” have a single, “plain” meaning—the one that the INS urges. The statutory words might be given the interpretation the INS recommends, at least if those words are considered in isolation. That is not to say, however, that the statutory language is “plain” or “unambiguous.” In my view, the statutory context of the words “adjudication under section 554” suggests a very plausible alternative interpretation. These words appear as part of a definition for the compound term “adversary adjudication,” namely, “an adjudication under section 554. . . in which the position of the United States is represented by counsel or otherwise.” This provision establishes a definition for both components of the term “adversary adjudication”: The reference to representation of the Government’s position “by counsel or otherwise” defines what makes an administrative proceeding adversary; the reference to § 554 defines what makes a procedure an adjudication. The EAJA could have been drafted to specify explicitly the features that constitute an “adjudication” for fees purposes. The term “adjudication,” however, already had an accepted meaning at the time the EAJA was enacted. Rather than reproduce that definition, Congress simply referred the reader, shorthand, to the features described in § 554, the APA section that defines a generic adjudication. The words “adjudication under section 554” plausibly mean