The U.S. Supreme Court case Bowles, Price Administrator v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., 1944 revolved around the interpretation of a price regulation by an administrative agency. The issue was whether or not the maximum price set for crushed stone by the Office of Price Administration (OPA) during World War II applied to a particular type of stone sold by Seminole Rock & Sand Company. The OPA argued that it did, while Seminole contended that their product was exempt from this ceiling due to its unique characteristics and production process. The court ruled in favor of the OPA's interpretation, establishing what has become known as "Seminole Rock deference" or "Auer deference". This principle holds that courts should generally defer to an administrative agency's own reasonable interpretations of ambiguous regulations it is tasked with enforcing unless such interpretations are plainly erroneous or inconsistent with regulation itself.

In the dissenting opinion for Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., Justice Robert H. Jackson argued against the majority's decision to defer to an agency's interpretation of its own regulations, a principle now known as "Seminole Rock deference". He expressed concern that this would give agencies too much power and blur the separation between legislative and judicial powers. In his view, courts should not abdicate their responsibility to independently interpret and apply laws just because they are complex or technical in nature. Instead, he suggested that if a regulation is so ambiguous that it requires interpretation by the agency which promulgated it, then it fails at providing fair notice of what conduct is required or prohibited - one of its main purposes - and thus should be invalidated on those grounds alone.