In law, nonacquiescence is the intentional failure by one branch of the government to comply with the decision of another to some degree. It tends to arise only in governments that feature a strong separation of powers, such as in the United States, and is much rarer in governments where such powers are partly or wholly fused. Nonacquiescence may lead to a constitutional crisis, given certain critical situations and decisions.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) uses the term nonacquiescence in its actions on decision to indicate that the IRS disagrees with a court ruling and will not follow its precedent nationwide.[7] In some cases of nonacquiescence, the IRS may follow the decision's precedent within the jurisdiction of the case in question, but not apply it in other jurisdictions.[7]
^Gregory Sisk, Litigation with the Federal Government (Philadelphia: American Law Institute, 2006), 418–425.
^Robert J. Hume, How Courts Impact Federal Administrative Behavior (New York: Routledge, 2009), 92–106.
^Canon, Bradley C. (2004). "Studying bureaucratic implementation of judicial policies in the United States: conceptual and methodological approaches". In Hertogh, Marc; Halliday, Simon (eds.). Judicial Review and Bureaucratic Impact. Cambridge University Press. pp. 76–100. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511493782.004. ISBN978-0-511-49378-2.
^The SSA publishes Acquiescence Rulings and the IRS publishes Actions on Decisions, in which they state whether they will regard a particular court decision as precedent or not.
^See, e.g., Hutchison v. Chater, 99 F.3d 286, 287–88 (8th Cir. 1996); Johnson v. U.S. Railroad Retirement Board, 969 F.2d 1082 (D.C. Cir. 1992); Allegheny General Hospital v. NLRB, 608 F.2d 965 (3d Cir. 1979); and Lopez v. Heckler, 713 F.2d 1432 (9th Cir.), rev'd on other grounds sub nomine Heckler v. Lopez, 463 U.S. 1328 (1983).