Case Name: PITTSTON COAL GROUP et al. v. SEBBEN et al.
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1988-12-06
Citations: 488 U.S. 105
Docket Number: No. 87-821
Parties: PITTSTON COAL GROUP et al. v. SEBBEN et al.
Judges: The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 488
Pages: 105–151

Head Matter:
PITTSTON COAL GROUP et al. v. SEBBEN et al.
No. 87-821.
Argued October 3, 1988
Decided December 6, 1988
Deputy Solicitor General Ayer argued the cause for the federal petitioners. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Fried, Christopher J. Wright, George R. Salem, Allen H. Feldman, Charles I. Hadden, and Edward D. Sieger. Mark E. Solomons argued the cause for petitioners Pittston Coal Group et al. With him on the briefs were John D. Maddox, Laura Metcoff Klaus, and Allen R. Prunty.
Paul M. Smith argued the cause for respondents in all cases. With him on the brief for respondents Sebben et al. were Joseph N. Onek and I. John Rossi. Robert E. Lehrer filed a brief for respondents Broyles et al. With him on the brief was Raymond T. Reott.
Together with No. 87-827, McLaughlin, Secretary of Labor, et al. v. Sebben et al., also on certiorari to the same court, and No. 87-1095, Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Broyles et al., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the National Coal Association by Robert F. Stauffer; and for the National Council on Compensation Insurance et al. by Michael Camilleri, Mark Gordon, and John Nangle.

Opinion:
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These consolidated cases call into question the Secretary of Labor's interpretation of 30 U. S. C. § 902(f)(2), which, for specified categories of black lung benefit claimants, provides that "[cjriteria applied by the Secretary of Labor in the case of . . . any claim . . . shall not be more restrictive than the criteria applicable to a claim filed on June 30, 1973." Respondents contend that interim regulations applied by the Secretary in adjudicating their claims, see 20 CFR pt. 727 (1988), did not comply with this provision. In Broyles v. Director, OWCP, 824 F. 2d 327 (CA4 1987) (No. 87-1095), the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed, and directed the Secretary to adjudicate the claims pursued by respondents Broyles and Colley under the less restrictive standards in force on June 30, 1973. See 20 CFR § 410.490 (1973). In In re Sebben, 815 F. 2d 475 (CA8 1987) (Nos. 87-821 and 87-827), the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit similarly found the interim Labor regulation invalid under § 902(f)(2), and reversed the District Court's refusal to issue a writ of mandamus compelling the Secretary to readjudicate a class of claims previously considered under the interim regulation, notwithstanding that the Secretary's decision in those cases had become final. We granted certiorari, 484 U. S. 1058 (1988), to decide the statutory issue, which is the subject of` a Circuit conflict, and further to decide, in the event we find the Secretary's interpretation of the statute unlawful, whether mandamus will lie to compel the readjudication of claims decided under erroneous standards but not directly appealed to the courts within the time prescribed.
I
The black lung benefits program provides benefits to those who have become totally disabled because of pneumoconiosis, a chronic respiratory and pulmonary disease arising from coal mine employment. See Mullins Coal Co. v. Director, OWCP, 484 U. S. 135, 141 (1987). Originally enacted as Title IV of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 (FCMHSA), Pub. L. 91-173, 83 Stat. 792-798, the program has consisted of two separate parts. Under the original legislation, part B constituted a temporary program of federally financed benefits to be administered by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), and part C envisioned a more permanent program operating under the auspices of the Secretary of Labor and relying on state workers' compensation programs where possible.
For part B claims, the FCMHSA provided that the Secretary of HEW "shall by regulation prescribe standards for determining . . . whether a miner is totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis." FCMHSA § 411(b). The regulations relevant here consisted of "permanent" and "interim" components. The permanent HEW regulations generally prescribed methods and standards for establishing elements of statutory entitlement. See 20 CFR §410.401-410.476 (1973). In addition, following (and in response to) the Black Lung Benefits Act of 1972, Pub. L. 92-303, 86 Stat. 150, the Secretary of HEW adopted an interim regulation designed to "permit prompt and vigorous processing of the large backlog of claims" that had developed during the early phases of administering part B. See 20 CFR § 410.490(a) (1973). To deal with a perceived inadequacy in facilities and medical tests, this interim HEW regulation established two classes of presumptions. First, under the presumption at issue here, a claimant could establish presumptive entitlement by showing that "[a] chest roentgenogram (X-ray), biopsy, or autopsy establishes the existence of pneumoconiosis" and that "[t]he impairment . . . arose out of coal mine employment." §410.490(b)(l)(i), (b)(2). The proof of causality required for this first presumption was to be established under §410.416 or §410.456, both of which accorded a rebuttable presumption of causality to claimants with 10 years of mining service and also permitted claimants to prove causality by direct evidence. See § 410.490(b)(2). The second presumption (drafted in a most confusing manner) enables a claimant to obtain presumptive entitlement by establishing specified scores on ventilatory tests if the miner had "at least 10 years of the requisite coal mine employment." § 410.490(b)(l)(ii), (b)(3). Both presumptions were rebuttable by a showing that the miner was working or could work at his former mine employment or the equivalent. § 410.490(c). Miners unable to obtain either presumption had to proceed under the permanent HEW regulations. § 410.490(e). The term of the interim regulation coincided with the term of the part B program, and expired after June 30, 1973, for claims filed by living miners and after December 31, 1973, for survivors' claims. § 410.490(b).
The FCMHSA provided that after part B ceased, part C would shift black lung benefits claims into state workers' compensation programs approved by the Secretary of Labor as "adequate" under statutory standards. FCMHSA §421. If no statutorily approved program existed in a given State, the Secretary of Labor was to handle the benefits claims aris ing in that State directly, and was to prescribe regulations for assigning liability to responsible mine owners. See FCMHSA § 422(a). Events did not unfold as expected, however. The Secretary of Labor approved no state workers' compensation program during the relevant period, see Lopatto, The Federal Black Lung Program: A 1983 Primer, 85 W. Va. L. Rev. 677, 688 (1983), and part C became exclusively a federally run workers' compensation program administered by the Secretary of Labor. Significantly, the FCMHSA provided that "[t]he regulations of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under section 411(a) of this title shall also be applicable to claims [processed by the Secretary of Labor] under [part C]." FCMHSA § 422(h). Thus, because the interim HEW regulation expired as part C began, the Secretary of Labor adjudicated part C claims exclusively under the permanent HEW regulations.
This state of affairs persisted until Congress passed the Black Lung Benefits Reform Act of 1977 (BLBRA), Pub. L. 95-239, 92 Stat. 95. The BLBRA amended 30 U. S. C. § 902(f) to give the Secretary of Labor authority to establish total disability regulations for part C cases. § 902(f)(1). Pending issuance of the new Labor Department regulations, the BLBRA provided for an interim administrative regime applying standards different from (and more generous than) those of the permanent HEW regulations. Moreover, the BLBRA provided not only that these interim standards would be applied to cases filed or pending during the interim period, but also that claims previously denied would, upon the claimant's request, be reopened and readjudicated under the interim standards. 30 U. S. C. § 945. The nature of the interim standards was to be such that the "[cjriteria applied by the Secretary of Labor in the case of . . . any claim . . . shall not be more restrictive than the criteria applicable to a claim filed on June 30, 1973." 30 U. S. C. § 902(f)(2). That is the language giving rise to the dispute in these cases.
In response to the BLBRA, the Secretary of Labor promulgated the interim regulation at issue here for claims within the scope of § 902(f)(2). This regulation accords a presumptive claim of entitlement to miners having 10 years' experience in coal mines and satisfying one of several "medical requirements," including X-ray, biopsy, or autopsy evidence of pneumoconiosis or ventilatory study evidence identical to that required by the HEW interim regulation. 20 CFR § 727.203(a) (1988). It is central to the present cases that under this interim regulation, unlike the interim HEW regulation (§§410.490(b)(l)(i), (b)(2)), a miner cannot obtain the first presumption of entitlement without 10 years of coal mine service. Moreover, the rebuttal provisions of the interim Labor regulation mandate that "all relevant medical evidence shall be considered," § 727.203(b), permitting rebuttal not only on the grounds available in the interim HEW regulation (§ 410.490(c)), but also on the basis that "the total disability or death of the miner did not arise in whole or in part out of coal mine employment" or that "the miner does not, or did not, have pneumoconiosis." See §727.203(b)(l)-(4). A § 902(f)(2) claimant unable to obtain the interim Labor presumption can prove entitlement under either the permanent HEW regulations or the (subsequently issued) permanent Labor regulations, depending on when the claim was filed and adjudicated. 20 CFR § 727.4(b) (1988). The permanent Labor regulations took effect on April 1, 1980. See 20 CFR § 718.2 (1988).
II
One of the three consolidated cases before us, Director, OWCP v. Broyles, No. 87-1095, is itself a consolidation by the Fourth Circuit of two separate cases brought by, respectively, Lisa Kay Colley and Charlie Broyles. Respondent Colley's father, Bill Colley, and respondent Broyles filed claims for black lung benefits in 1974 and 1976, respectively. Under 30 U. S. C. § 945(b), both claimants were entitled to have their claims adjudicated pursuant to the BLBRA amendments. Thus, the interim Labor regulation applied. Since, however, neither claimant had worked 10 years in the mines, neither qualified for the presumption of entitlement under §727.203, so that both cases were adjudicated under the permanent HEW regulations. In both cases, the Administrative Law Judge found against the claimants, and the Benefits Review Board (BRB) affirmed. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the BRB as to both claimants, holding that the unavailability of the interim Labor presumption to short-term miners violated § 902(f)(2) by forcing the application of the "more restrictive" "criteria" found in the permanent HEW regulations. See 824 F. 2d, at 329-330.
The other two consolidated cases before us, Pittston Coal Group v. Sebben, No. 87-821, and McLaughlin v. Sebben, No. 87-827, both involve a potential class of claimants consisting of those who
"(1) have filed claims for benefits under the BLBA between December 30, 1969, and April 1, 1980; (2) have claimed a disability due to pneumoconiosis caused by employment in the coal mining industry; (3) have submitted a positive X-ray as proof of the presence of pneumoconiosis; (4) have been denied the benefit of the presumption of pneumoconiosis contained in 20 CFR § 727.203(a)(1) because they did not prove that they had worked ten years in the coal mines; (5) were not afforded the opportunity to submit a claim under 20 CFR §410.490; and (6) do not have claims under 20 CFR § 410.490 or 20 CFR § 727.203(a)(1) currently pending before the Department of Labor." 815 F. 2d, at 484-485.
These claimants differ from those in No. 87-1095 in that the latter have timely appealed the Labor Department's adverse decisions to the courts, while these claimants have permitted the time for direct appeal to expire. See 815 F. 2d, at 478, 485. The Eighth Circuit ordered the certification of this class and decided that mandamus would appropriately lie to compel the Secretary of Labor to readjudicate the class members' claims under §410.490. The panel's opinion relied on the Eighth Circuit's earlier decision in Coughlan v. Director, OWCP, 757 F. 2d 966 (CA8 1985), which, like Broyles, had determined that 30 U. S. C. § 902(f)(2) required the application of §410.490 standards to claims filed before April 1, 1980. It further held that the claimants' failure to perfect direct appeals from the Secretary's adverse decisions was no obstacle to the present suit.
Ill
The statutory text at issue here provides that "[cjriteria applied by the Secretary of Labor . . . shall not be more restrictive than the criteria applicable" under the interim HEW regulation. The respect in which it is claimed here that the Labor criteria are more restrictive is this: whereas under the first presumption of the interim HEW regulation (see supra, at 109) a miner would obtain a presumption of entitlement by establishing (1) pneumoconiosis and (2) either 10 years of coal mining experience or proof that the pneumoconiosis was caused by mining employment, under the interim Labor regulation 10 years' experience is the exclusive element of the second factor. In defending the interim Labor regulation, the Secretary maintains that the term "criteria" is ambiguous, and that her resolution of that ambiguity is reasonable and therefore must be sustained. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-843, and n. 9 (1984). We disagree. In our view, the statute simply will not bear the meaning the Secretary has adopted.
"Criteria" are "standard[s] on which a judgment or decision may be based." Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 307 (1983). It is undisputed that in the current context the standards referred to include the standards for obtaining the presumption of entitlement. The distinctive feature of the interim HEW regulation was precisely its establishment of presumptions, and to fix it as a benchmark without reference to its presumptions would be meaningless.
The Secretary contends, however, that the criteria referred to in § 902(f)(2) do not include the criteria for all the elements necessary to a successful claim. Those elements are essentially three: (1) pneumoconiosis; (2) causation by coal mine employment; and (3) total disability (defined as the inability of the claimant to do his former mine work or the equivalent because of pneumoconiosis). See Mullins Coal Co. v. Director, OWCP, 484 U. S. 135 (1987). The Secretary argues that since § 902(f)(2) is part of the statutory definition section dealing with "total disability," the "criteria" to which it refers must be limited to those bearing upon that element. Total disability criteria would in her view consist of essentially medical (and to some extent vocational) factors, but in no circumstances could include the 10-year-employment requirement at issue here, which obviously goes to causation rather than disability.
The premise of the Secretary's argument — that "criteria" means total disability criteria — has considerable merit, though it is by no means free from doubt. Assuming it is correct, however, we find it unavailing to sustain the Secretary's interim regulation, which in our view does impose more restrictive total disability criteria. For although the categorical 10-year-employment requirement bears proximately upon causation, it bears ultimately upon total disability as well. The interim HEW regulation had provided, in effect, that if certain evidence of the first two elements of entitlement (pneumoconiosis and causation) was established, the third element (total disability) would, aidomatically be presumed. Thus, to increase the requirements for the presumption of causality is necessarily to increase the requirements for the presumption of total disability. No other view of the matter accords with the reality. By making the criteria for proving causation "more restrictive" for miners who seek a presumption of entitlement and can establish pneumoconiosis, the interim Labor regulation necessarily applies "more restrictive" total disability criteria than those in the interim HEW regulation.
The Secretary goes further still, however, and argues that the legislative history leading up to the enactment of the BLBRA actually discloses a congressional intention to preserve only "medical criteria" in the adoption of § 902(f)(2). We need not canvass in detail that legislative history, which shows at most that medical criteria were the focus of the House and Senate debates. It is not the law that a statute can have no effects which are not explicitly mentioned in its legislative history, and the text of the present statute plainly embraces criteria of more general application. We refer not merely to use of the unqualified term "criteria" in § 902(f)(2) itself, but also to the text of related provisions. Immediately preceding § 902(f)(2) in the text of the BLBRA and of the United States Code is § 902(f)(1)(D), which provides that the "Secretary of Labor . . . shall establish criteria for all appropriate medical tests under this subsection which accurately reflect total disability." (Emphasis added.) If, as the Secretary contends, Congress intended the word "criteria" to cover only medical criteria (such as ventilatory scores) in both of these simultaneously adopted subsections, it is most implausible that it would have qualified the word in the one but not in the other.
Moreover, the Secretary has suggested no reason why Congress should insist that only the medical criteria under the interim Labor regulation be no more restrictive, while being utterly indifferent as to the addition of other conditions for recovery. There was assuredly no belief that the interim HEW medical criteria were particularly precise or accurate. Quite to the contrary, the prologue of the regulation that adopted them made very clear that they were rough guesses adopted for the time being "in the light of limited medical resources and techniques." 20 CFR §410.490 (1988). Petitioners Pittston Coal Group et al. cite persuasive evidence for the proposition that the X-ray evidence required in §410.490 does not conclusively establish pneumoconiosis, and that the ventilatory scores employed in that provision "are basically normal values for retired coal miners." Brief for Petitioners in No. 87-821, pp. 31-33. It seems likely that Congress had no particular motive in preserving the HEW interim medical criteria other than to assure the continued liberality of black lung awards. Since that motive applies to racwmedical criteria with equal force, there is no apparent reason for giving the unqualified word "criteria" the unnaturally limited meaning the Secretary suggests.
Even if we agreed with the Secretary's assertion that the "criteria" in § 902(f)(2) consist solely of "medical criteria," we would still conclude that the interim Labor regulation is in violation of the statute. The various criteria that go into determining a claim of entitlement under the interim HEW regulation are closely — indeed, inextricably — intertwined. The configuration of a claimant's nonmedical characteristics effectively determines which "medical criteria" the claimant must establish in order to obtain presumptive entitlement. Thus, in order to make out a prima facie claim of entitlement by submitting X-ray, biopsy, or autopsy evidence establishing pneumoconiosis, a miner proceeding under the interim HEW regulation must fall within either the class of claimants having 10 years of coal mine experience or the class of claimants able to prove that respiratory impairment arose out of coal mine employment. Under the interim Labor regulation, however, this medical evidence no longer suffices for the latter class of claimants; they must in addition submit affirmative proof of total disability (regardless of whether they then proceed under the permanent HEW or the permanent Labor regulations), which would principally involve submission of medical proof of disability. See 20 CFR §410.422-410.426 (1988) (permanent HEW regulations); id., §718.204 (permanent Labor regulations). Thus, for claims brought by miners in that class, the medical criteria are necessarily more restrictive — violating the statutory requirement of "no more restrictive" criteria "in the case of . . . any claim."
That the Secretary has increased medical criteria can be more readily understood by transposing the substance of what has occurred here to a more commonplace, analogous context. Just as the black lung program considers both medical and nonmedical criteria for entitlement, college admissions programs typically consider both academic and extracurricular criteria for admission. Assume a hypothetical college that has traditionally tendered offers of admission to all applicants with a B + average, and to all high school student-body presidents and football-team captains with a B average. • The Board of Trustees, concerned about increasing intellectualism at the institution, issues a directive providing that "the academic criteria applied by the admissions committee in considering any application for admission shall be no more restrictive than those employed in the past." Surely one would not say that this directive permits the admissions committee to terminate the practice of admitting football-team captains with a B average. To be sure, the admissions committee could assert that it was merely applying stricter extracurricular activity requirements for those who had B averages, just as the Secretary here claims that she is merely applying stricter causality requirements for those miners who have the requisite evidence of pneumoconiosis. But the admissions committee would at the same time be raising the academic criteria for all football-team captains — just as the Secretary is raising the medical criteria for miners who can establish causality only by direct evidence.
The Secretary's remaining arguments require little discussion. She points out that Congress could very easily have adopted the entire interim HEW regulation if it had meant to preserve all aspects of the HEW presumptions. But that course (which is in any event no more simple than § 902(f)(2)) would have produced a different result, because it would not have permitted the Secretary to adopt less restrictive criteria. The' Secretary also observes that in enacting the BLBRA, Congress had before it evidence suggesting that disabling pneumoconiosis rarely manifests itself in miners with fewer than 10 years of coal mine experience. Though that is quite true, we do not sit to determine what Congress ought to have done given the evidence before it, but to apply what Congress enacted — and, as we have discussed, the exclusion of short-term miners from the benefits of the presumption finds no support in the statute. The Secretary and private petitioners cite favorable postenactment statements by key sponsors of the BLBRA. Since such statements cannot possibly have informed the vote of the legislators who earlier enacted the law, there is no more basis for considering them than there is to conduct postenactment polls of the original legislators. Finally, the Secretary focuses on the interim Labor regulation's additional rebuttal provisions, which permit the introduction of evidence disputing both the presence of pneumoconiosis and the connection between total disability and coal mine employment. Respondents have conceded the validity of these provisions, even though they permit rebuttal of more elements of statutory entitlement than did the interim HEW regulation. The Secretary argues that there is no basis for drawing a line that permits alteration of the rebuttal provisions, but not the affirmative factors addressed by the Secretary. That may or may not be so, but it does not affect our determination regarding the affirmative factors, for which it seems to us the statutory requirements are clear. Respondents' concession on the rebuttal provisions means that we are not required to decide the question of their validity, not that we must reconcile their putative validity with our decision today. (The concession also means that we have no occasion to consider the due process arguments of petitioners, which are predicated upon the proposition that the rebuttal provisions must be more expansive than those in the' HEW interim regulation.)
Finally, we address an argument not made by the Secretary — neither before us nor, as far as appears, before any other court in connection with this extensive litigation — but relied upon by the dissent. The dissent believes that the Secretary of HEW made a typographical error in drafting §410.490, and that the reference in paragraph (b)(3) to subparagraph (b)(1)(h) should be a reference to subparagraph (b)(l)(i). Even if this revision of what the Secretary wrote (and defended here) made total sense, we would hesitate to impose it uninvited. But in fact it does not bring order to the regulation. It does not, as the dissent contends, eliminate redundancy in §410.490, but merely shifts redundancy from one paragraph to another. Under the dissent's revi sion of the regulation, a claimant submitting X-ray, biopsy, or autopsy evidence of pneumoconiosis under subparagraph (b)(l)(i) would also have to establish disease causation under paragraph (b)(2) and total disability causation under paragraph (b)(3). The last of these requires 10 years of coal mine employment. But if that can be established, the second requirement, contained in paragraph (b)(2), is entirely superfluous, since that provides (by cross-references to §410.416 and 410.456) that a presumption of disease causation is established by 10 years of coal mine employment. (To be sure, §410.416 and 410.456 permit rebuttal of the presumption, but it is plainly not the intended purpose of paragraph (b)(2) to serve as a rebuttal provision rather than a substantive requirement.) Nor would paragraph (b)(2) have any operative effect for a claimant proceeding under subparagraph (b)(1)(h), since that itself (without reference to paragraph (b) (3)) requires a minimum of 15 years of coal mine employment.
Moreover, even if the Secretary of HEW had made a typographical error, the dissent offers no evidence whatever to establish that in enacting the BLBRA, Congress, unlike past and present Secretaries, was aware of that error, and meant to refer to the regulation as the dissent would amend it. To support congressional agreement with its understanding of the regulation, the dissent produces, from the voluminous legislative history of hearings, debates, and committee reports dealing with this subject, nothing more than stray remarks made by a United Mine Workers official and a single Representative at hearings occurring four years and two Congresses before the BLBRA was enacted, see post, at 147-148 — remarks that the dissent concedes could be attributable to a simple "misread[ing] [of] the regulation," post, at 148, n. 12. We do not think this suffices to justify rewriting §410.490 as the dissent believes (perhaps quite reasonably) it should have been written.
IV
Having agreed with the conclusion of both courts below that the interim Labor regulation violates § 902(f)(2), there remains for us to consider the propriety of the orders which that conclusion produced. In Broyles (No. 87-1095), the Fourth Circuit remanded the case to the Benefits Review Board for further proceedings in accordance with its opinion. That action was correct — with the clarification, however, that its opinion requires application of criteria no more restrictive than §410.490 only as to the affirmative factors for invoking the presumption of entitlement, and not as to the rebuttal factors, the validity of which respondents have conceded.
The order of the Eighth Circuit in Sebben (Nos. 87-821 and 87-827) is more problematic. There, as we described earlier, the finding that the interim Labor regulation violated § 902(f)(2) was the basis for mandamus instructing the Secretary to readjudicate, under the correct standard, cases that had already become final by reason of the claimants' failure to pursue administrative remedies or petition for judicial review in a timely manner. The Eighth Circuit's rationale for this order is deceptively simple: with respect to both the claims reopened and readjudicated pursuant to 30 U. S. C. §945, and the claims initially adjudicated under the interim Labor regulation, the Court of Appeals reasoned that the Secretary had never fulfilled her statutory duty because she had failed to adjudicate the claims "under the proper standard." 815 F. 2d, at 482. This rationale does not suffice.
The extraordinary remedy of mandamus under 28 U. S. C. § 1361 will issue only to compel the performance of "a clear nondiscretionary duty." Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S. 602, 616 (1984). Under the provisions of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act made applicable to the adjudication of black lung benefits claims by 30 U. S. C. 932(a), initial administrative determinations become final after 30 days if not appealed to the Benefits Review Board, see 33 U. S. C. § 921(a), and persons aggrieved by a final order of the Board may have such an order set aside only by petitioning for review in a court of appeals within 60 days of the final order, see 33 U. S. C. § 921(c). Determinations of all of the Sebben claims became final at one of these two stages. Thus, to succeed in the present cases the Sebben respondents had to establish not only a duty to apply less restrictive criteria than those found in 20 CFR §727.203 (1988), but also a duty to reopen the final determinations. The latter was not established.
With respect to claims filed between the effective date of the BLBRA and that of the permanent Labor regulations, and with respect to claims filed before the effective date of the BLBRA but not yet adjudicated at that time, there is not even a colorable basis for the contention that Congress has imposed a duty to reconsider finally determined claims. And with respect to the already adjudicated pre-BLBRA claims that 30 U. S. C. § 945 required the Secretary to readjudicate under the new, interim Labor regulation, a basis for reopening can be found only if one interprets § 945 to override the principle of res, judicata not just once but perpetually, requiring readjudication and re-readjudication (despite the normal rules of finality) until the Secretary finally gets it right. But there is no more reason to interpret a command to readjudicate pursuant to a certain standard as permitting perpetual reopening, until the Secretary gets it right, than there is to interpret a command to adjudicate in this fashion. That is to say, one could as plausibly contend that every statutory requirement that adjudication be conducted pursuant to a particular standard permits reopening until that requirement is complied with. This is not the way the law works. The pre-BLBRA claimants received what § 945 required: a readjudication of their cases governed by the new statutorily prescribed standards. Assuming they are correct that these new standards would have entitled them to benefits, they would have been vindicated if they had sought judicial review; they chose instead to accept incorrect adjudication. They are in no different position from any claimant who seeks to avoid the bar of res judicata on the ground that the decision was wrong.
We do not believe that Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U. S. 467 (1986), upon which the Sebben respondents place principal reliance, has any bearing upon the present cases. There we held that the application of a secret, internal policy by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in adjudicating Social Security Act claims equitably tolled the limitations periods for seeking administrative or judicial review. Id., at 478-482. Even assuming that equitable tolling is available under the relevant provisions of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, the conditions for applying it do not exist. The agency action here was not taken pursuant to a secret, internal policy, but under a regulation that was published for all to see. If respondents wished to challenge it they should have done so when their cases were decided.
Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the Fourth Circuit, and reverse the decision of the Eighth Circuit and remand with instructions to direct the District Court to dismiss the petition for mandamus.
It is so ordered.
Besides the Fourth and Eighth Circuits, two other federal appeals courts have found the interim Labor regulations impermissibly "restrictive" under § 902(f)(2). See Kyle v. Director, OWCP, 819 F. 2d 139 (CA6 1987); Halon v. Director, OWCP, 713 F. 2d 21 (CA3 1983). The Seventh Circuit has held to the contrary. See Strike v. Director, OWCP, 817 F. 2d 395, 404-405 (1987).
The dissent asserts that "criteria" in § 902(f)(2) was merely "shorthand" for the earlier phrase "criteria for all appropriate medical tests," proving the point to its satisfaction by recasting the two statutory provisions into a single sentence where such shorthand reference would be obvious. See post, at 133-134. It is difficult to argue with the proposition that a statute can be rephrased to say something different. The point here is that the two provisions do not occur within the same sentence, or indeed even within parallel sentences (one being a subparagraph, and the next the beginning of a new paragraph), and that they do not naturally suggest any ellipsis. Moreover, not only is the unqualified term "criteria" used in the separate paragraph immediately following the lengthier phrase "criteria for all appropriate medical tests," but it is also used in the separate subparagraph immediately preceding use of the lengthier phrase — namely, in § 902(f)(1)(C), which provides that the Secretary's regulations "shall not provide more restrictive criteria than those applicable under section 223(d) of the Social Security Act." Surely this preceding provision cannot be interpreted as a "shorthand" for a longer provision that has not yet appeared, which means that if the dissent's construction is correct the word "criteria" in the statute is used twice, one paragraph apart, with two different meanings. It is true that § 902(f)(1)(C) was a pre-existing provision, whereas § 902(f)(1)(D) and 902(f)(2) were simultaneously added by the BLBRA; even so, one should not attribute to the draftsmen of the BLBRA the use of a shorthand that produces such a peculiarity in the United States Code.