Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/428/1/case.php
Timestamp: 2019-08-19 10:09:28
Document Index: 658938209

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 901', '§ 421', '§ 931', '§ 421', '§ 931', '§ 402', '§ 902', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 402', '§ 402', '§ 402', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 402', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 415', '§ 422', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 410', '§ 422', '§ 411', '§ 411', '§ 430', '§ 940']

385 F.Supp. 424, affirmed in part; reversed in part; vacated and remanded in part. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
MARSHALL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BRENNAN, WHITE, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined; in all but Part IV of which POWELL, J., joined; and in all but Part V-D of which STEWART and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. POWELL, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in part, post, p. 428 U. S. 3. STEWART, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which REHNQUIST, J., joined, post, p. 428 U. S. 45. BURGER, C.J.,concurred in the judgment. STEVENS, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the cases.
Twenty-two coal mine operators (Operators) brought this suit to test the constitutionality of certain aspects of Title IV of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, 83 Stat. 792, as amended by the Black Lung Benefits Act of 1972, 86 Stat. 150, 30 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. IV). The Operators, potentially liable under the amended Act to compensate certain miners, former miners, and their survivors for death or total disability due to pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in coal mines, sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the Secretary of Labor and the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Coal workers' pneumoconiosis -- black lung disease -- affects a high percentage of American coal miners with severe, and frequently crippling, chronic respiratory impairment. [Footnote 1] The disease is caused by long-term inhalation of coal dust. [Footnote 2] Coal workers' pneumoconiosis (hereafter chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Removing the miner from the source of coal dust has so far proved the only effective means of preventing the contraction of pneumoconiosis, and once contracted, the disease is irreversible in both its simple and complicated stages. No therapy has been developed. Finally, because the disease is progressive, [Footnote 6] at least in its complicated chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Under Part C of Title IV, §§ 421-431, 30 U.S.C. §§ 931-941 (1970 ed. and Supp. IV), claims filed after December 31, 1973, are to be processed under an applicable state workmen's compensation law approved by the Secretary of Labor under the standards set forth in § 421, 30 U.S.C. § 931 (1970 ed. and Supp. IV). In chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Claims filed during the transition period between the Federal Government benefit provision under Part B, and state plan or operator benefit provision under Part C -- that is, July 1 to December 31, 1973 -- are adjudicated chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
§ 402(f), 30 U.S.C. § 902(f) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). [Footnote 9] The Act also prescribes several "presumptions" for use in determining compensable disability. [Footnote 10] Under § 411(c)(3), a miner chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In initiating this suit against the defendant Secretaries (hereafter Federal Parties), the Operators contended that the amended Act is unconstitutional insofar as it requires the payment of benefits with respect to miners who left employment in the industry before the effective date of the Act; that the Act's definitions, presumptions, and limitations on rebuttal evidence unconstitutionally impair the operators' ability to defend against benefit claims; and that certain regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Labor regarding the apportionment of liability for benefits among operators, and the provision of medical benefits, are inconsistent with the Act, and constitutionally defective. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Operators' appeal, No. 74-1316, reasserts the constitutional challenges rejected by the District Court. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Operators contend that the amended Act violates the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause by requiring them to compensate former employees who terminated their work in the industry before the Act was passed, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
To be sure, insofar as the Act requires compensation for disabilities bred during employment terminated chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It does not follow, however, that what Congress can legislate prospectively it can legislate retrospectively. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The retrospective aspects of legislation, as well as the prospective aspects, must meet the test of due process, and the justifications for the latter may not suffice for the former. Thus, in this case, the justification for the retrospective imposition of liability must take into account the possibilities that the Operators may not have known of the danger of their employees' contracting pneumoconiosis, and that, even if they did know of the danger, their conduct may have been taken in reliance upon the current state of the law, which imposed no liability on them for disabling pneumoconiosis. [Footnote 16] While the Operators have clearly been aware of the danger of pneumoconiosis for at least 20 years, [Footnote 17] and while they have not specifically pressed the contention that they would have taken steps to reduce or eliminate the incidence of pneumoconiosis had the law imposed liability upon them, we would nevertheless hesitate to approve the retrospective imposition of liability on any theory of deterrence, cf. United States v. Peltier, 422 U. S. 531, 422 U. S. 542 chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Of course, as we have already indicated, a substantial portion of the burden for disabilities stemming from the period prior to enactment is borne by the Federal Government. But even taking the Operators' argument at face value, it is for Congress to choose between imposing the burden of inactive miners' disabilities on all operators, including new entrants and farsighted early operators who might have taken steps to minimize black lung dangers, or to impose that liability solely on those early operators whose profits may have been increased at the expense of their employees' health. We are unwilling to assess the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In sum, the Due Process Clause poses no bar to requiring an operator to provide compensation for a chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Second, if a miner can show by clinical evidence (ordinarily X-ray evidence) that he is afflicted with complicated pneumoconiosis, the incurable and final stage of the disease, then the miner is deemed to be totally disabled under § 411(c)(3). [Footnote 20] Thus, Congress has mandated that chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Operators contend that the definition of "total disability" set up in § 402(f) is unconstitutionally arbitrary and irrational, because it provides for the compensation of former miners who might well be employable in other lines of work, and who therefore are not truly disabled by their mining-generated afflictions. We think it patent that this attack on § 402(f) must fail. A miner disabled under § 402(f) standards has suffered in at least two ways: his health is impaired and he has been rendered unable to perform the kind of work to which he has adapted himself. Whether these interferences merit compensation is a public policy matter left primarily to the determination of the legislature. Cf. Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U. S. 484 (1974). We cannot say that they are so insignificant as not to be a rational basis for compensation. Indeed, we long ago upheld against similar attack a workmen's compensation scheme providing benefits for injuries not depriving the employee of his ability to work. See New York Central R. Co. v. Bianc, 250 U. S. 596 (1919); cf. Urie v. Thompson, 337 U. S. 163, 337 U. S. 181-187 (1949). chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
As an operational matter, the effect of § 411(c)(3)'s "irrebuttable presumption" of total disability is simply to establish entitlement in the case of a miner who is clinically diagnosable as extremely ill with pneumoconiosis arising out of coal mine employment. [Footnote 21] Indeed, the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
legislative history discloses that it was precisely this advanced and progressive stage of the disease that Congress sought most certainly to compensate. [Footnote 22] Were the Act phrased simply and directly to provide that operators were bound to provide benefits for all miners clinically demonstrating their affliction with complicated pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in the mines, we think it clear that there could be no due process objection to it. For, as we have already observed, destruction of earning capacity is not the sole legitimate basis for compulsory compensation of employees by their employers. New York Central R. Co. v. Bianc, supra. We cannot say that it would be irrational for Congress to conclude that impairment of health alone warrants compensation. Since Congress can clearly draft a statute to accomplish precisely what it has accomplished through § 411(c)(3)'s presumption of disability, the argument is essentially that Congress has accomplished its result in an impermissible manner -- by defining eligibility in terms of "total disability" and erecting an "irrebuttable presumption" of total disability upon a factual showing that does not necessarily satisfy the statutory definition of total disability. But in a statute such as this, regulating chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In addition to creating an irrebuttable presumption of total disability, § 411(c)(3) provides that clinical evidence of a miner's complicated pneumoconiosis gives rise to an irrebuttable presumption that he was totally disabled by pneumoconiosis at the time of his death, and that his death was due to pneumoconiosis. The effect of these presumptions, in particular, the presumption of death due to pneumoconiosis, is to grant benefits to the survivors of any miner who, during his lifetime, had complicated pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in the mines, regardless of whether the miner's death was caused by pneumoconiosis. The Operators raise no separate challenge to these presumptions, and we would have no occasion to comment separately on them were it not for the Operators' general complaint against the application of the Act to employees who terminated their employment before the Act was passed. To the extent that the presumption of death due to pneumoconiosis is viewed as requiring compensation for damages resulting from death unrelated to the operator's conduct, its application to employees who terminated their employment before the Act was passed would present difficulties not encountered in our prior discussion of retroactivity. The justification we found for the retrospective application of the Act is that it serves to spread costs in a rational manner -- by allocating to the operator an actual cost of his chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It might be suggested that the payment of benefits to dependent survivors is irrational as a scheme of compensation for injury suffered as a result of a miner's disability. But we cannot say that the scheme is wholly chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We might face a more difficult problem in applying § 411(c)(3)'s presumption of death due to pneumoconiosis on a retrospective basis if the presumption authorized benefits to the survivors of a miner who did not die from pneumoconiosis, and who, during his life, was completely unaware of and unaffected by his illness; or, in the case of a miner who died before the Act was passed, if the presumption authorized benefits to the survivors of a miner who did not die from pneumoconiosis, who nevertheless was aware of and affected by his illness, but whose dependents were completely unaware of and unaffected by his illness. But the Operators, in their facial attack on the Act, have not suggested that a miner whose condition was serious enough to activate the § 411(c)(3) presumptions might not have been affected in any way by his condition, or that the family of such a miner might not have noticed it. Under the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Turning our attention to the statutory regulations of proof of § 402(f) disability, we focus initially on the Operators' challenge to the presumptions contained in §§ 411(c)(1) and (2). Section 411(c)(1) provides that a coal miner with 10 years' employment in the mines who suffers from pneumoconiosis will be presumed to have contracted the disease from his employment. [Footnote 26] Section 411(c)(2) provides that, if a coal miner with 10 years' employment in the mines dies from a respiratory disease, his death will be presumed to have been due to pneumoconiosis. [Footnote 27] Each presumption is explicitly rebuttable, and the effect of each is simply to shift the burden of going forward with evidence from the claimant to the operator. See Fed.Rule Evid. 301. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Judged by these standards, the presumptions contained in § 411(c)(1) and (2) are constitutionally valid. The Operators focus their attack on the rationality of the presumptions' bases in duration of employment. But it is agreed here that pneumoconiosis is caused by breathing coal dust, and that the likelihood of a miner's developing the disease rests upon both the concentration of dust to which he was exposed and the duration of his exposure. Against this scientific background, it was not chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Operators insist, however, that the 10-year presumptions are arbitrary, because they fail to account for varying degrees of exposure, some of which would pose lesser dangers than others. We reject this contention. In providing for a shifting of the burden of going forward to the operators, Congress was no more constrained to require a preliminary showing of the degree of dust concentration to which a miner was exposed, a historical fact difficult for the miner to prove, than it was to require a preliminary showing with respect to all other factors that might bear on the danger of infection. It is worth repeating that mine employment for 10 years does not serve, by itself, to activate any presumption of pneumoconiosis; it simply serves, along with proof of pneumoconiosis under § 411(c)(1), to presumptively establish the cause of pneumoconiosis, and, along with proof of death from a respiratory disease under § 411(c)(2), to presumptively establish that death was due to pneumoconiosis. In its "rough accommodations," Metropolis Theatre Co. v. Chicago, 228 U. S. 61, 228 U. S. 69 (1913), Congress was surely entitled to select duration of employment, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Operators press the same due process attack upon the durational basis of the rebuttable presumption in § 411(c)(4), which provides, inter alia, that a miner employed for 15 years in underground mines, who is able to marshal evidence demonstrating a totally disabling respiratory or pulmonary impairment, shall be rebuttably presumed to be totally disabled by pneumoconiosis. [Footnote 29] Particularly chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Congress was presented with significant evidence demonstrating that X-ray testing that fails to disclose pneumoconiosis cannot be depended upon as a trustworthy chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Taking these indications of the unreliability of negative X-ray diagnosis at face value, Congress was faced with the problem of determining which side should bear the burden of the unreliability. On the one hand, preclusion of any reliance on negative X-ray evidence would risk the success of some nonmeritorious claims; on the other hand, reliance on uncorroborated negative X-ray evidence would risk the denial of benefits in a significant number of meritorious cases. Congress addressed the problem by adopting a rule which, while preserving some of the utility, avoided the worst dangers of X-ray evidence. Section 413(b) does not make negative X-ray evidence inadmissible, or ineligible to be considered as ultimately persuasive evidence when taken together with other factors -- for example, a low level of coal dust concentration in the operator's mine, a relatively short duration chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Operators attack the limitation on the use of negative X-ray evidence by suggesting that Congress' conclusion as to the unreliability of negative X-ray evidence is constitutionally unsupportable. Relying on other evidence submitted to Congress in 1972, [Footnote 37] the Operators contend that the consensus of medical judgment on the question is that good quality X-ray evidence does reliably indicate the presence or absence of pneumoconiosis. In essence, the Operators seek a judicial reconsideration of the judgment of Congress on this issue. But the reliability of negative X-ray evidence was debated forcefully on both sides before the Congress, and the Operators here suggest nothing new to add to the debate; they are simply dissatisfied with Congress' conclusion. As we have recognized in the past, however, when it comes to evidentiary rules in matters "not within specialized judicial competence or completely commonplace," it is primarily for Congress "to amass the stuff of actual experience chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The effect of this limitation on rebuttal evidence is, inter alia, to grant benefits to any miner with 15 years' employment in the mines, if he is totally disabled by some respiratory or pulmonary impairment arising in connection with his employment, and has a case of pneumoconiosis. The Operators contend that this limitation erects an impermissible irrebuttable presumption, because it establishes liability even though it might be medically demonstrable in an individual case that the miner's chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Federal Parties urge on their cross-appeal that these constitutional judgments are erroneous. We need not inquire into the constitutional questions raised by the District Court, however, because we think it clear as a matter of statutory construction that the § 411(c)(4) limitation on rebuttal evidence is inapplicable to operators. By the language of § 411(c)(4), the limitation applies only to "the Secretary," and not to an operator seeking to avoid liability under § 415 or § 422. And this plain language is fortified by the legislative history. The Senate Report on § 411(c)(4) specifically states that the limitation on rebuttal applies to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, but nowhere suggests that it binds an operator. [Footnote 39] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In short, we conclude that the Act does not itself limit the evidence with which an operator may rebut the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We are aware that regulations promulgated in 1972 by the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under his § 411(b) authorization, 20 CFR § § 410.414, 410.454 (1975), applicable to Part C determinations under § 422(h), and expressly adopted in 1973 by the Secretary of Labor, 20 CFR pt. 718 (1975), authorize limitations on rebuttal evidence similar to those contained in § 411(c)(4), and appear to apply in determinations of an operator's liability. But the Operators' amended complaint never challenged the statutory or constitutional validity of these regulations. [Footnote 40] Particularly in the absence of any mention of the regulations in the opinion and judgment of the District Court, or in the briefs and oral arguments of the parties, we find it inappropriate to consider their statutory or constitutional validity at this stage. [Footnote 41] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Coal miner's pneumoconiosis was not recognized in the United States until the 1950's, and there was no federal chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The unprecedented feature of the Act is that miners may be eligible to receive benefits from a particular coal mining concern even if the miner was no longer employed in the industry at the time of enactment. The chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Operators do not challenge their liability to miners employed at the time of or after enactment, a liability which accords with familiar principles of workmen's compensation. [Footnote 2/5] They contend, however, that a statutory liability to former miners has been imposed in violation of the Fifth Amendment guarantee against arbitrary, irrational, or discriminatory legislation, see, e.g., Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78, 404 U. S. 81 (1971), as there chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Ante at 428 U. S. 18-19. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Nor can I accept without serious question the Court's view that the costs now imposed by the Act may be passed on to consumers. Firms burdened with retroactive payments must meet that expense from current production and current sales in a market where prices must be competitive with the prices of firms not so burdened. One ordinarily would expect that, if burdened firms are to meet both competitive prices and their retroactive obligations, their profits necessarily will be less than those of their competitors. Thus, the burdened firms, in all likelihood, will have to bear the costs of the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In some industries, conditions might be such that the cost of retroactively imposed benefits could be spread to consumers. It seems most unlikely, however, that the coal industry is such an industry. A notable fact about coal mining is that the industry currently employs only about 150,000 persons, whereas, in 1939, it employed nearly 450,000. Brief for Operators 24. The reduced scale of employment in the coal industry, combined with the liability to former miners and their survivors, means that retroactive obligations almost certainly will be disproportionate to the scale of current operations. [Footnote 2/7] Moreover, it is unlikely that liability to former miners will be distributed randomly across the industry, as it is dictated by historical patterns that may be wholly unrelated to the present contours of the industry. Two examples are illustrative: (i) some coal mining concerns have been in the mining business for decades, while some competitors have commenced operation more recently. The exposure of the former group to claims of employees long separated from active employment is likely to be significantly chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Despite the foregoing, I must concur in the judgment on the record before us. Congress had broad discretion in formulating a statute to deal with the serious problem of pneumoconiosis affecting former miners. E.g., Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78 (1971); cf. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955). Nor does the Constitution require that legislation on economic matters be compatible with sound economics, or even with normal fairness. As a result, economic and remedial social enactments carry a strong presumption of constitutionality, e.g., United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 304 U. S. 148 (1938), and the Operators had the heavy burden of showing the Act to be unconstitutional. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
As the Court correctly observes, the critical question is thus whether the § 411(c)(4) limitation chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The care and precision which Congress used in drafting this qualifying language bears on the propriety of reading the phrase "to the extent appropriate" as obliquely qualifying the applicability of the rebuttal limitation to chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Moreover, the Court's reading of the statute is anomalous in terms of the overall structure of Part C. The primary goal of Congress in framing Part C was to transfer adjudicatory responsibilities over coal miners' pneumoconiosis claims to state workmen's compensation tribunals, but only if the state compensation law was chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The statutory language and legislative history simply will not yield such an unlikely result. The phrase "to the extent appropriate" in § 430, 30 U.S.C. § 940 (1970 ed., Supp. IV), plainly refers to language in Part B which has no relevance to Part C, notably the language that specifics that "the Secretary [of Health, Education, and Welfare]" is to have certain adjudicative responsibilities. These are the references that are not "appropriate" under Part C, because Part C transfers adjudicative responsibilities to the States or, in the alternative, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary