Lane Hollow Coal Co. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs

• Decision Date: 03 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-2819,96-2819
• Citation: 137 F.3d 799
• Parties: LANE HOLLOW COAL COMPANY; Old Republic Insurance Company, Petitioners, v. DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAMS, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR; Pauline Lockhart, Widow of Woodrow Lockhart, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 799

137 F.3d 799

LANE HOLLOW COAL COMPANY; Old Republic Insurance Company, Petitioners, v. DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAMS, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR; Pauline Lockhart Widow of Woodrow Lockhart, Respondents.

No. 96-2819.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 6, 1997.

Decided March 3, 1998.

ARGUED: Mark Elliott Solomons, Arter & Hadden, Washington, DC, for Petitioners. Lawrence Lee Moise, III, Vinyard & Moise, P.C., Abingdon, VA, for Respondent Lockhart; J. Matthew McCracken, Office of the Solicitor, United States Department of Labor, Washington, DC, for Respondent Director. ON BRIEF: Laura Metcoff Klaus, Arter & Hadden, Washington, DC, for Petitioners. J. Davitt McAteer, Acting Solicitor of Labor, Donald S. Shire, Associate Solicitor for Black Lung Benefits, Christian P. Barber, Counsel for Appellate Litigation, United States Department Of Labor, Washington, DC, for Respondent Director.

Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, MICHAEL, Circuit Judge, and MICHAEL, Senior United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed in part and vacated in part by published opinion. Judge MICHAEL wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge WILKINSON and Senior Judge MICHAEL joined.

OPINION

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge:

Lane Hollow Coal Company and its insurer petition for review of an order of the Department of Labor's Benefits Review Board (BRB) in a case arising under the Black Lung Benefits Act (the Act). ¹ This order affirmed the decision of an administrative law judge (ALJ), who had awarded black lung and survivor's benefits to Pauline Lockhart, the widow of former coal miner Woodrow Lockhart, and had directed that liability for these benefits should rest upon Lane Hollow as the "responsible operator." ² In this appeal Lane Hollow challenges both of these determinations. While we agree with the BRB that substantial evidence supports the award of benefits, we believe that the extraordinary delay in notifying Lane Hollow of its potential liability deprived it of a meaningful opportunity to contest that liability. Accordingly, we affirm the award of benefits but vacate the designation of Lane Hollow as responsible operator.

I.

Woodrow Lockhart was born in 1917. He worked in the nation's coal mines for over twenty years. His last long-term employer, from 1972 to 1975, was petitioner Lane Hollow Coal Company. ³

On June 10, 1975, Lockhart filed a claim for benefits under the Act. He listed several of his many former employers on a Department of Labor form submitted with his claim. The very first listed was Lane Hollow, along with a notation that he had worked there for about three years. The Department obtained Social Security records verifying this and a great deal of earlier coal mine employment. On November 18, 1976, a claims examiner denied benefits.

In 1977 Congress amended the Act to loosen eligibility criteria and directed that claims denied before or pending on March 1, 1978, could be reconsidered under the new standards if the claimant so elected. 30 U.S.C. § 945(a). Lockhart's claim was reconsidered, but it was denied on April 28, 1980, and (apparently after the submission of more evidence by Lockhart) denied yet again on June 24, 1981.

To this point, six years after the claim was filed, the Department of Labor had not attempted to notify a responsible operator. This first delay was no accident. Under its own regulations the Department may forego notifying the responsible operator in a Part 727 case ⁴ until and unless an initial finding of eligibility is made by a deputy commissioner, 20 C.F.R. § 725.412, or the claim is initially denied and the claimant requests a formal hearing. 20 C.F.R. § 725.410(d).

Whatever the wisdom or legality ⁵ of these regulations or the six year delay they engendered here, everything changed on July 15, 1981: Lockhart made a timely request for a hearing. Notwithstanding § 725.410(d), no responsible operator was named when the claim was transferred to the Office of Administrative Law Judges.

Five years passed. On August 12, 1986, the Department moved to remand the case so that a responsible operator could be named; three potential operators were named in this motion, including Lane Hollow. The ALJ granted the motion on October 3, 1986.

Five more years passed. On April 26, 1991, three potential responsible operators were notified, but not Lane Hollow. By happenstance, these operators were insured by petitioner Old Republic, so, as of April 26, 1991, Old Republic had both notice of the claim and the same incentive to defend it as it would have had on behalf of Lane Hollow.

Defense would prove difficult, however. Lockhart had been unable to outlive his claim--he died of pneumonia December 12, 1989--and Old Republic would be left to build a medical opinion case from a hard record that could no longer be augmented.

One last snafu remained. The case had returned to the ALJ after the erroneous responsible operator designation. On March 3, 1992, the Department filed a second motion to remand so that Lane Hollow could be named. Lockhart's widow objected to this further delay, but the motion was granted on March 16, 1992. Lane Hollow was finally notified of the claim on April 6, 1992, seventeen years after notice could have been given and eleven years after the regulations command that it be given. Moreover, the Department reversed its many previous denials and found that Lockhart had been eligible for benefits beginning in October 1981. Lane Hollow contested this finding, and on August 12, 1993, the case was referred yet again to the ALJ.

A hearing was held before the ALJ on February 2, 1994. The following August the ALJ issued a decision and order awarding benefits. He held that the weight of the x-ray evidence invoked the interim presumption of total disability due to pneumoconiosis as of October 1981 and that Lane Hollow had failed to rebut it. The BRB affirmed on July 26, 1995, and Lane Hollow has petitioned for review.

II.

A.

Lane Hollow first argues that the ALJ violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by failing to adequately explain the reasons for his conclusions. The APA requires an ALJ's opinion to contain his "findings and conclusions, and the reasons or bases therefor, on all material issues of fact, law or discretion presented on the record." 5 U.S.C. § 557(c)(3)(A). We must affirm the award of benefits if it is in accordance with law and is supported by substantial evidence. Wilson v. Benefits Review Board, 748 F.2d 198, 199-200 (4th Cir.1984).

B.

Because Lockhart's claim was filed before the effective date of the permanent regulations at 20 C.F.R. Part 718, and he worked for over ten years in the mines, he was eligible for the interim presumption of entitlement under the criteria of 20 C.F.R. § 727.203(a). As the "proponent of [the] rule or order," the claimant has the burden of proving entitlement to the interim presumption. 5 U.S.C. § 556(d); Director, OWCP v. Greenwich Collieries, 512 U.S. 267, 114 S.Ct. 2251, 129 L.Ed.2d 221 (1994). Similarly, once the presumption is invoked, the proponent of any rebuttal bears the burden.

The interim presumption is invoked if "[a] chest roentgenogram (X-ray) ... establishes the existence of pneumoconiosis[.]" § 727.203(a)(1). Notwithstanding this provision's reference to a singular x-ray, it in fact requires the ALJ to weigh all available x-ray evidence to determine whether it preponderates in favor of a finding of pneumoconiosis. Mullins Coal Co. v. Director, OWCP, 484 U.S. 135, 108 S.Ct. 427, 98 L.Ed.2d 450 (1987).

Lockhart had single x-rays taken in 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1981, and 1985, and three during the last thirty days of his life. These last three were of such poor quality as to be unreadable; hence, they are evidence of nothing and were disregarded by the ALJ.

There were nine readings of the 1974-1980 x-rays. Without elaboration on the point, the ALJ held that the weight of this evidence was against the existence of pneumoconiosis. The 1981 and 1985 x-rays were another story. All six readings in the record were positive. Thus, the ALJ found that the interim presumption was invoked as of the date of the 1981 x-ray.

The basic purpose of the APA's duty of explanation is to help the ALJ get it right--the exercise of writing is a great catalyst to rational thought--but its secondary purpose is to allow us to discharge our own duty to review the decision. See v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 36 F.3d 375, 384 (4th Cir.1994). If we understand what the ALJ did and why he did it, we, and the APA, are satisfied. An adequate explanation can be a succinct one; the APA neither burdens ALJs with a duty of long-windedness nor requires them to assume that we cannot grasp the obvious connotations of everyday language. Brevity can foster clarity.

Lane Hollow asserts that the ALJ did not explain how he weighed the x-ray evidence. The faulty premise of Lane Hollow's argument is that the ALJ credited the 1981-1985 x-ray evidence over the earlier readings. He did not. The weight of the 1974-1980 x-ray evidence was negative, and the ALJ so held: no benefits were awarded for this period. All of the 1981-1985 x-ray evidence was positive, and the ALJ so held, awarding benefits as of the earliest of the films. Because pneumoconiosis is progressive and irreversible, these holdings presented no chronological anomaly requiring further inquiry. ⁶ In sum, the ALJ's reasoning is obvious, his brevity in no manner hampers our review, and his finding that the x-ray evidence established the existence of pneumoconiosis as of October 1981 is supported by substantial evidence.

C.

The interim presumption is rebuttable in any of four ways, § 727(b)(1)-(4), but Lane Hollow's options here were more limited. Because the existence of pneumoconiosis had been proved by a preponderance of the evidence under § (a)(1) at the presumption...