Opinion ID: 347080
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the benefits review board as respondent

Text: 13 Petitioners contend that under Fed.R.App.P. 15(a), the Benefits Review Board is a proper respondent. We rejected that contention in Nacirema Operating Co. Inc. v. Benefits Review Board, 538 F.2d 73, 75 (3d Cir. 1976), holding that it occupied a purely adjudicatory position analogous to that of the district courts in the pre-1972 review scheme. Other circuits have reached the same conclusion. E. g., ITO Corporation of Baltimore and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company v. Benefits Review Board, 542 F.2d 903 (4th Cir.) (en banc), cert. filed, 45 U.S.L.W. 3417 (Nov. 24, 1976) (No. 76-730); Offshore Food Service, Inc. and Aetna Casualty & Surety Company v. Benefits Review Board, 524 F.2d 967 (5th Cir. 1975); McCord v. Benefits Review Board, and Cephas, 168 U.S.App.D.C. 302, 514 F.2d 198 (1975). The First and Second Circuits have avoided passing on this issue. Stockman v. John T. Clark & Son of Boston & American Mutual Liability Ins. Co., 539 F.2d 264 (1st Cir. 1976), cert. filed, 45 U.S.L.W. 3332 (October 22, 1976) (No. 571); Pittston Stevedoring Corporation v. Dellaventura, 544 F.2d 35, 42 n.5 (2d Cir. 1976). Judge Pell's opinion in the Peabody Coal Company case, supra, also notes the issue without deciding it. 554 F.2d at 332. We find no reason for reconsidering the Nacirema Operating Co. holding that the Benefits Review Board, performing adjudicatory functions only, is not 14 a proper respondent. III. THE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAMS, AS A RESPONDENT 15 In the Nacirema Operating Co. case, supra, we granted the motion of the Benefits Review Board to be dismissed as a respondent, but proceeded to grant the petition for review against the Director, the only respondent left in the case, rather than dismissing it. Implicitly, then, we held that the Director was a proper respondent. In Director, Office of Workers' Programs v. O'Keefe, 545 F.2d 337 (3d Cir. 1976), we allowed the Director to maintain a petition for review. The parties have called to our attention that a panel of this court in a per curiam not for publication, Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company, et al., Nos. 76-1828 and 76-1868 (3d Cir. January 17, 1977), dismissed a petition for review by the Director for lack of standing. The panel relied on a Fourth Circuit decision, ITO Corp. of Baltimore et al. v. Benefits Review Board etc. & Adkins, 542 F.2d 903 (4th Cir. 1976) (en banc), cert. filed, 45 U.S.L.W. 3447 (Nov. 24, 1976) (No. 730). That unpublished per curiam is inconsistent with the holdings in Nacirema and O'Keefe. The latter, as published opinions of this Court, are binding precedents for this panel, while the uncirculated and unpublished per curiam opinion is not. Internal Operating Procedures, M.2. Moreover, the Fourth Circuit view which it adopted has not been followed in other circuits. The cases are collected in Judge Pell's opinion in the Peabody Coal Company case, which proves to our satisfaction that at least in Black Lung cases, in which the government has a secondary liability in the event an employer does not pay benefits, the Director does have standing to represent the government's interests. See 30 U.S.C. § 934; 20 C.F.R. § 720.220(b) (1975). Contrary to the conclusion of the Fourth Circuit in ITO Corp. of Baltimore v. Benefits Review Board etc. & Adkins, supra, the Director does have a stake in the outcome. The United States is actually paying benefits to the claimant, which it contends should be paid by Krolick Contracting Corporation. 16 Entirely aside from the government's financial interest in the outcome, moreover, there is the command of Fed.R.App.P. 15(a), that in agency review proceedings in this court (i)n each case the agency shall be named respondent. That rule is generally applicable to statutory review proceedings within this court's original jurisdiction, and 33 U.S.C. § 921(c) provides such jurisdiction (although § 921(c), in its present form, does not, as it did prior to 1972, identify the deputy commissioner making the order as a respondent). The reference to a specific agency respondent in the pre-1972 version of 33 U.S.C. § 921(b) was included prior to the adoption of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. Perhaps, although no clear legislative history on the subject has been called to our attention, the omission of a reference to the proper respondent when § 921(b) was amended in 1972 was a conscious recognition of the more general reference in Rule 15(a). 17 Certainly a claimant for benefits may be either a petitioner or a respondent, depending upon the outcome in the BRB. In Black Lung cases, since the government may have secondary liability, it is similarly situated. We need not and do not decide whether the same conclusion follows for the other benefits programs administered under the LHWCA. See Peabody Coal Company, supra, 554 F.2d at 338. 18 IV. THE NEED FOR QUALIFIED ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGES 19 In Part I above, we concluded that the 1972 amendments to the hearing and review schemes of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act do apply in Title IV, Part C Black Lung cases. At the outset of the new scheme, it was clear that administrative law judges qualified under the Administrative Procedure Act were required in Part C cases. But in the last four Department of Labor Appropriations Acts Congress, apparently aware of the impasse between the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Labor, provided that the Secretary of Labor could appoint qualified persons . . . to conduct hearings (in Black Lung cases) without meeting the requirements for hearing examiners appointed under 5 U.S.C. § 3105 . . . . 4 Acting under the authority of the appropriation acts, and in order to prevent the frustration of the Part C benefits program, the Secretary promulgated 20 C.F.R. § 715.101(a)(27), authorizing hearing examiners not qualified under 5 U.S.C. § 3105 to hear Part C cases. We conclude, as did Judge Pell in Peabody Coal Company, supra, 554 F.2d at 339-341, that the regulation is valid and that the petitioners' objection to the qualifications of the hearing examiner is groundless. 5 Since we do there is no occasion to consider whether the Benefits Review Board erred in holding that the petitioners waived any objection to those qualifications. Its order is valid in any event.