Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 562

524US2

Unit: $U94

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 498 (1998)

517

Opinion of O(cid:146)Connor, J.

As of June 30, 1987, the 1950 and 1974 Beneﬁt Plans reported
surplus assets, totaling over $33 million. House Report 9.

B

Following enactment of the Coal Act, the Commissioner
assigned to Eastern the obligation for Combined Fund pre-
miums respecting over 1,000 retired miners who had worked
for the company before 1966, based on Eastern’s status
as the pre-1978 signatory operator for whom the miners
had worked for the longest period of time. See 26 U. S. C.
§ 9706(a). Eastern’s premium for a 12-month period ex-
ceeded $5 million. See Brief for Petitioner 16.

Eastern responded by suing the Commissioner, as well as
the Combined Fund and its trustees, in the United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Eastern
asserted that the Coal Act, either on its face or as applied,
violates substantive due process and constitutes a taking of
its property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Eastern
also challenged the Commissioner’s interpretation of the
Coal Act. The District Court granted summary judgment
for respondents on all claims, upholding both the Commis-
sioner’s interpretation of the Coal Act and the Act’s constitu-
tionality. Eastern Enterprises v. Shalala, 942 F. Supp. 684
(Mass. 1996).

The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit afﬁrmed.
Eastern Enterprises v. Chater, 110 F. 3d 150 (1997). The
court rejected Eastern’s challenge to the Commissioner’s in-
terpretation of the Coal Act. Addressing Eastern’s substan-
tive due process claim, the court described the Coal Act as
“entitled to the most deferential level of judicial scrutiny,”
explaining that, “[w]here, as here, a piece of legislation is
purely economic and does not abridge fundamental rights, a
challenger must show that the legislature acted in an arbi-
trary and irrational way.”
Id., at 155–156 (internal quota-
tion marks omitted).
In the court’s view, the retroactive lia-
bility imposed by the Act was permissible “[a]s long as the