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Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a decision in Lutheran Home at Kane et al v. Dep’t of Human Servs, 7 MAP 2025 (Oct. 1, 2026). In short, this case presented the issue of when a government agency writes a rule and later disputes what it means, whose reading wins?
The Court gave a nuanced answer that matters to every regulated entity. The case involved a payment-rate dispute between nursing facilities and a state agency over the wording of a regulation. The court sided with the agency, but its reasoning is the real news.
The court rejected the idea that judges should simply defer to an agency’s reading of its own rules. It also declined to adopt the stricter federal approach, which requires courts to exhaust every interpretive tool before considering the agency’s view. Instead, Pennsylvania courts solidified that the Statutory Construction Act instructs that an agency’s own interpretation of its regulations is but one of eight factors the Court considers. How much it counts is up to the court.
In Kane, the agency won because its reading was consistent and longstanding. It had applied the same method since the regulation took effect, and the court found that history strong evidence of what the agency originally intended. The court also stressed that this was no after-the-fact justification invented for litigation. Based on these considerations, the Court found the agency’s interpretation of its own regulation was reasonable.
