Black Lung rule credits 125 working days as a year of mine employment

Listen to this article

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded the denial of black lung benefits, holding that under the Black Lung Benefits Act a miner can receive credit for a year of coal mine employment by working at least 125 days in or around a mine during a one-year period. The court rejected the view that the miner also had to prove a continuous 365-day employment relationship.

The case concerned the BLBA‘s 15-year presumption, which allows a miner with at least 15 years of qualifying underground coal mine employment and a totally disabling respiratory impairment to benefit from a presumption that the disease arose from coal mine work. The petitioner continued the claim after the miner’s death. A district director initially found that the miner had more than 15 years of qualifying employment and awarded benefits, but the employer challenged that ruling before an administrative law judge.

The ALJ found 11 full years of qualifying employment plus several partial years that included layoffs. But instead of counting whether the miner had worked at least 125 days in or around the mines during those disputed periods, the ALJ treated the partial years as fractions of a full 365-day employment relationship. That calculation yielded only 14.14 years of coal mine employment, which meant the miner could not invoke the 15-year presumption. The Benefits Review Board affirmed.

The 4th Circuit reversed that approach. It held that the governing Department of Labor regulation unambiguously focuses on actual working days in or around a coal mine, not uninterrupted payroll status. The court also said that interpretation better serves the BLBA’s remedial purpose by preventing layoffs or interrupted employment relationships from arbitrarily defeating otherwise valid claims. Because the ALJ used the wrong legal standard and failed to determine the miner’s actual working days in the disputed years, the court vacated and remanded for recalculation and further proceedings.

The 34 page opinion is Baldwin v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, Lawyers Weekly No. 001-099-26.