Westmoreland Coal Co. v. Sharpe ex rel. Sharpe

• Decision Date: 20 August 2012
• Docket Number: No. 10–2327.,10–2327.
• Citation: 692 F.3d 317
• Parties: WESTMORELAND COAL COMPANY, INCORPORATED, Petitioner, v. Mae Ann SHARPE, on behalf of and as widow of William A. SHARPE; Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

692 F.3d 317

WESTMORELAND COAL COMPANY, INCORPORATED, Petitioner,

v.Mae Ann SHARPE, on behalf of and as widow of William A. SHARPE; Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, Respondents.

No. 10–2327.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: Jan. 25, 2012.

Decided: Aug. 20, 2012.

ARGUED:William Steele Mattingly, Jackson Kelly, PLLC, Morgantown, West Virginia, for Petitioner. Rita Ann Roppolo, United States Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.; John A. Bednarz, Jr., Wilkes–Barre, Pennsylvania, for Respondents. ON BRIEF:M. Patricia Smith, Solicitor of Labor, Rae Ellen James, Associate Solicitor, Sean G. Bajkowski, Counsel for Appellate Litigation, Barry H. Joyner, United States Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., for Federal Respondent.

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and KING and AGEE, Circuit Judges.

Petition for review denied by published opinion. Judge KING wrote the majority opinion, in which Chief Judge TRAXLER joined. Judge AGEE wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

KING, Circuit Judge:

As recounted in our prior opinion in these Black Lung Benefits Act proceedings, see Sharpe v. Dir., OWCP, 495 F.3d 125 (4th Cir.2007) ( “Sharpe I ”), coal miner William A. Sharpe was awarded total disability benefits in 1993, and received those benefits until he died in 2000. A week after Mr. Sharpe's death, his widow, Mae Ann Sharpe, made a claim for survivor's benefits. Within two months of Mrs. Sharpe's claim being filed—and nearly seven years after Mr. Sharpe's living miner's claim was approved—liable employer Westmoreland Coal Company filed a modification request, by which it sought reconsideration of Mr. Sharpe's 1993 award of benefits (the “Modification Request”). In 2004, an administrative law judge (“ALJ”) agreed to modify the 1993 award, retroactively denying Mr. Sharpe's living miner's claim and, thus, also rejecting Mrs. Sharpe's survivor's claim. Then, in 2005, the Benefits Review Board (the “BRB”) affirmed the ALJ's decision. On Mrs. Sharpe's petition for review, however, we vacated and remanded for further proceedings, explaining that the ALJ had failed to exercise the discretion accorded to him with respect to the Modification Request. See Sharpe I, 495 F.3d at 128.

On remand, the ALJ again denied Mr. Sharpe's living miner's claim and Mrs. Sharpe's survivor's claim, but the BRB reversed. Accordingly, this matter is now before us on Westmoreland's petition for review, with Mrs. Sharpe and the Director of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs being the designated respondents. As explained below, we deny Westmoreland's petition for review and thereby affirm the BRB's decision in Mrs. Sharpe's favor.

I.

A.

The early history of the Sharpes' claims was outlined in our Sharpe I opinion. See495 F.3d at 128–30. William Sharpe worked for thirty-nine years in the coal mines of southern West Virginia and western Virginia, and was employed by Westmoreland Coal Company for at least eight of those years. Mr. Sharpe last worked for Westmoreland as a manager in and around underground coal mines, and he retired in 1988. Mr. Sharpe had previously worked in various mining operations as a general superintendent, a foreman, a section foreman, a rock driller, and a coal loader. In March 1989, Mr. Sharpe filed his claim for benefits, maintaining that he suffered from black lung disease, or pneumoconiosis. See30 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1) (providing that, “[i]n the case of total disability of a miner due to pneumoconiosis, the disabled miner shall be paid benefits”). An ALJ denied Mr. Sharpe's living miner's claim in 1991, but the BRB subsequently vacated the ALJ's finding that Mr. Sharpe did not suffer from complicated pneumoconiosis. See, e.g., Westmoreland Coal Co. v. Cox, 602 F.3d 276, 282 (4th Cir.2010) (recognizing that condition described in 30 U.S.C. § 921(c)(3) is known as statutory “complicated pneumoconiosis” and entitles claimant to irrebuttable presumption of total disability). The living miner's claim was then remanded to a different ALJ, who, by decision of August 26, 1993 (the “1993 ALJ Decision”), found that Mr. Sharpe suffered from complicated pneumoconiosis and awarded him benefits retroactive to the initial filing of his living miner's claim in 1989.

Westmoreland appealed the 1993 ALJ Decision to the BRB, which affirmed the benefits award on September 28, 1994. Significantly, Westmoreland failed to pursue its statutory right to seek judicial review of the BRB's affirmance of the 1993 ALJ Decision. See33 U.S.C. § 921(c) (allowing that “[a]ny person adversely affected or aggrieved by a final order of the Board may obtain a review of that order in the United States court of appeals for the circuit in which the injury occurred”).¹ Mr. Sharpe thus received total disability benefits from 1989 until his death on April 18, 2000.

After her husband died, Mae Ann Sharpe promptly filed, on April 26, 2000, her claim for survivor's benefits. See30 U.S.C. § 922(a)(2) (providing that, “[i]n the case of death of a miner due to pneumoconiosis ..., benefits shall be paid to his widow (if any) at the rate the deceased miner would receive such benefits if he were totally disabled”).² On June 15, 2000, Westmoreland filed its Modification Request, for the purpose of upsetting the 1993 award of benefits on Mr. Sharpe's living miner's claim. See33 U.S.C. § 922 (authorizing modification of a benefits award on grounds including “a mistake in a determination of fact”); 20 C.F.R. § 725.310 (implementing 33 U.S.C. § 922 with respect to black lung benefits). ³ According to Westmoreland, the 1993 ALJ Decision was premised on a mistake of fact, in that Mr. Sharpe had never suffered from complicated pneumoconiosis. On July 23, 2002, an ALJ denied the Modification Request and awarded benefits to Mrs. Sharpe on her survivor's claim. Westmoreland appealed to the BRB, which, on August 22, 2003, vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

Thereafter, by decision of April 30, 2004 (the “2004 ALJ Decision”), the ALJ reversed himself and concluded that a mistake of fact had been made in the 1993 ALJ Decision's finding that Mr. Sharpe suffered from complicated pneumoconiosis. On that basis, the ALJ modified the 1993 ALJ Decision by retroactively denying Mr. Sharpe's living miner's claim, and consequently also denied Mrs. Sharpe's survivor's claim. The BRB affirmed the 2004 ALJ Decision by its decision of June 13, 2005 (the “2005 BRB Decision”), likewise assuming that Westmoreland had a right to modification of the 1993 award upon simply establishing a mistake of fact.

B.

The Sharpe I proceedings arose from Mrs. Sharpe's petition for review of the 2005 BRB Decision, in which she contended, inter alia, that the BRB had erroneously affirmed the 2004 ALJ Decision's modification of the 1993 ALJ Decision. We, of course, agreed with Mrs. Sharpe. That is, we recognized that “the modification of a black lung award or denial does not automatically flow from a mistake in an earlier determination of fact.” Sharpe I, 495 F.3d at 132. Rather, the adjudicator “ ‘ may, if he so chooses, modify the final order on the claim’ upon finding [a] mistake of fact.” Id. at 131 (quoting Jessee v. Dir., OWCP, 5 F.3d 723, 725 (4th Cir.1993)). In exercising that discretion, “modification should be made only where doing so will ‘render justice under the act.’ ” Id. at 132 (quoting Banks v. Chi. Grain Trimmers Ass'n, 390 U.S. 459, 464, 88 S.Ct. 1140, 20 L.Ed.2d 30 (1968)); see also Betty B Coal Co. v. Dir., OWCP, 194 F.3d 491, 501 (4th Cir.1999) (“[W]e have no quarrel with encouraging ALJs to exercise their discretion to reopen when doing this would promote justice (and we would not hesitate to correct abuses of that discretion)....”). Applying those principles to the rulings on Westmoreland's request to modify the 1993 award of living miner's benefits to Mr. Sharpe, we explained that

none of the administrative decisions rendered in connection with the Modification Request assessed all the factors relevant to an exercise of sound discretion. Instead, they addressed only one—whether a mistake of fact had been made in the 1993 ALJ Decision. Because the 2004 ALJ Decision (affirmed by the 2005 BRB Decision) found that a mistake of fact had been made, the adjudicatorswere obliged to exercise their sound discretion, pursuant to [20 C.F.R. § 725.310(a)], by evaluating the Modification Request in light of whether reopening the case would render justice under the [Black Lung Benefits Act].

Sharpe I, 495 F.3d at 132;see also id. at 134 (concluding that the ALJ's and the BRB's “misapprehension of the applicable legal standard is, by definition, an abuse of discretion”).

In remanding this matter, we instructed that “a proper exercise of discretion should lead the adjudicators to assess, in addition to the need for accuracy, the diligence and motive of Westmoreland in seeking modification ..., the possible futility of ... modification, and other factors that may bear on whether [modification] will ‘render justice under the Act.’ ” Sharpe I, 495 F.3d at 134;see also id. at 133 n. 15 (observing that “finality interests may sometimes be relevant to a proper modification request ruling,” though “ ‘the “principle of finality” just does not apply to ... black lung claims as it does in ordinary lawsuits' ” (quoting Jessee, 5 F.3d at 725)). For further guidance, we provided the following examples of potentially “significant factual issues”:

• Why did Westmoreland wait to seek modification under § 725.310(a) until June 2000, two months after Mr. Sharpe's death, and nearly seven years after the BRB had affirmed his living miner's award (a decision that Westmoreland never appealed)?

• Should Westmoreland's motive in seeking modification be deemed suspect?

• Was the Modification Request part and parcel of Westmoreland's defense to Mrs. Sharpe's claim for survivor's benefits, which had been filed less than two months earlier?

• Is the ...