Eifler v. Office of Workers' Compensation Programs
| Decision Date | 27 February 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-1924,90-1924 |
| Citation | 926 F.2d 663 |
| Parties | Oliver W. EIFLER, Petitioner, v. OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAMS, Peabody Coal Company, and Old Republic Insurance Company, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Leslie A. Jones, Johnson, Schaaf, Jones & Snelling, Thomas E. Johnson, Chicago, Ill., for petitioner.
Oliver W. Eifler, Chandler, Ind., pro se.
Donald S. Shire, Sol. Gen., Steven D. Breeskin, Rita Roppolo, Office of the Sol., Washington, D.C., John H. Secaras, Sol. Gen., Chicago, Ill., Sylvia T. Kaser, Melissa Reardon Henry, Black Lung Div., Carla Chapman, Ann McLaughlin, Benefits Review Bd., Dept. of Labor, Washington, D.C., W.C. Blanton, Terri A. Czajka, Ice, Miller, Donadio & Ryan, Indianapolis, Ind., for respondents.
Before POSNER, COFFEY, and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.
This appeal from the denial of benefits under the Black Lung Benefits Act, 30 U.S.C. Secs. 901 et seq., requires us to decide whether an administrative law judge is authorized under the Act to correct his factual mistakes.
Oliver Eifler, who is now 77 years old, applied for black lung benefits back in 1980, after having worked in coal mines for 34 years. After a hearing, an administrative law judge denied his application in 1985 on the ground that Eifler had not been totally disabled by pneumoconiosis (black lung disease). Eifler did not appeal from this decision but did file a petition for modification (in effect for reconsideration) supported by additional medical evidence. The matter was referred to the original administrative law judge, who denied the petition. The Benefits Review Board affirmed the denial.
We are met at the threshold by the argument that an administrative law judge has no power to correct his mistakes of fact because the regulation authorizing him to do so, 20 C.F.R. Sec. 725.310(a), is contrary to the statute on which it is based. That statute--section 22 of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 922, incorporated by reference in the Black Lung Benefits Act, 30 U.S.C. Sec. 932(a)--provides that "on the grounds of a change in conditions or because of a mistake in a determination of fact by the deputy commissioner, the deputy commissioner may ..., at any time prior to one year after the rejection of a claim, review a compensation case ... [and] issue a new compensation order." There thus are two grounds for modification. One is a change in conditions, and there is no question that the administrative law judge was authorized to modify the denial of benefits to Eifler on this ground, though he decided not to do so. The other ground is a mistake of fact, and it is here that the jurisdictional problem lies, by virtue of the statute's reference--omitted from the regulation--to "deputy commissioner." The statute authorizes a deputy commissioner to correct his mistakes but makes no reference to an administrative law judge's (or anyone else) being authorized to correct a mistake by an administrative law judge. In fact, there is no reference at all to administrative law judges in section 22.
History explains the omission and guides us to the solution of the interpretive puzzle. It used to be that the entire process for determining entitlement to benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act was in the hands of officers of the Department of Labor known as "deputy commissioners." In 1972 Congress decided to amend the Act to conform the procedures under it to the Administrative Procedure Act. H.R.Rep. No. 1441, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. 3 (1972), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1972, 4698. To this end the amendment transferred all powers that the deputy commissioners had exercised with respect to hearings to administrative law judges (then called hearing examiners). 33 U.S.C. Sec. 919(d). As a result, the procedure for obtaining benefits under both the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act and the Black Lung Benefits Act is bifurcated. The applicant still makes his application to a deputy commissioner, but upon the request of either party the deputy commissioner must refer the case to an administrative law judge for a hearing. 33 U.S.C. Secs. 919(a)-(d); Director v. Drummond Coal Co., 831 F.2d 240, 241 (11th Cir.1987). The same procedure applies to petitions for modification, because (as is plain from the reference to deputy commissioners in section 22) such a petition is submitted to the deputy commissioner in the first instance. Congress, undoubtedly through an oversight, failed to amend section 22 of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act to reflect the fact that any factual mistake which would warrant a reconsideration of a previous denial of benefits would now usually be committed by an administrative law judge and should be corrigible by him. But there is no insuperable obstacle, semantic or otherwise, to interpreting section 919(d) as effecting a substitution of "administrative law judge" for "deputy commissioner" in section 22 in any case in which either the original proceeding or the modification proceeding went to hearing before an administrative law judge. For then the mistake of fact if any will have been made by an administrative law judge, and the statute gives such judges all the adjudicative powers that deputy commissioners had exercised previously.
A contrary interpretation would have the bizarre consequence of making it impossible to correct mistakes in any longshore or black lung case that had gone to hearing. The deputy commissioner could not correct a mistake in such a case, for the mistake would have been made by the hearing officer, i.e., the administrative law judge, and the statute authorizes deputy commissioners to correct only their own mistakes. The resulting paralysis would be the unintended consequence of a statute (section 919(d)) the only purpose of which was to enhance the reliability of the hearing process by substituting administrative law judges for deputy commissioners having less status and independence. For almost twenty years the Department of Labor has proceeded on the assumption that the administrative law judge can correct his mistakes, and, as far as we are able to determine, not until this case did anybody think to challenge this administrative interpretation--to which we are required to give some deference. Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 844-45, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2782-83, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). An agency's power to reconsider its decisions for the purpose of correcting its mistakes has many times been said to be inherent, most recently in Rutherford v. United States, 806 F.2d 1455, 1460 (10th Cir.1986). "The power to...
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