Opinion ID: 859134
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Regulatory and Factual Background

Text: The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, Pub. L. No. 95-164, superseded two prior pieces of mine legislation, the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 4 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 (“the Coal Act”), Pub. L. No. 91-173, and the Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act of 1966 (“the Metal Act”), Pub. L. No. 89-577. The 1977 Mine Safety Act covers all types of mines addressed by these prior acts. In passing the new Mine Safety Act, Congress acted to strengthen the government’s authority to regulate mines in response to a joint committee of Congress finding that after “ten years of enforcement of the Metal [A]ct, and six years of enforcement of the Coal Act . . . fatalities and disabling injuries in our nation’s mines are still unacceptably and unconscionably high.” S. Rep. No. 95-181, at 7 (1977), reprinted in 1977 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3401, 3407. Recognizing “an urgent need to provide more effective means and measures for improving the working conditions and practices in the Nation’s coal or other mines in order to prevent death and serious physical harm, and in order to prevent occupational diseases originating in such mines,” Congress passed the 1977 Mine Safety Act to strengthen the govern- ment’s ability to ensure mine safety. 30 U.S.C. § 801(c). Congress found that the stronger Mine Safety Act was needed because earlier laws had proven too weak and mines still had appalling safety records. At the time the Mine Safety Act passed, an average of one miner died and sixty-six miners were injured each day, and the incidence of work-related injuries and illnesses for miners exceeded the “all-industry” rate at the time by about 14 percent. S. Rep. No. 95-181, at 4, 7, 1977 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3404, 3407. The Mine Safety Act created the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration (“MESA”), which has been Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 5 renamed the Mine Safety and Health Administration (“MSHA”). The Act gave MSHA broad authority to ensure the safety of mines, including the authority to inspect mines and collect records and reports, 30 U.S.C. § 813, to promulgate mandatory health and safety standards and rules, § 811, and to enforce safety standards and rules through citations and penalties, § 814. Most relevant here, section 813(a) authorizes MSHA to inspect and investigate mines, and section 813(h) imposes reporting and record-keeping requirements upon mine operators. Sections 813(a) and 813(h) provide the statutory basis for MSHA’s collection and reporting of data relating to mine safety and health. To implement these sections, regulations were promulgated detailing a system of required reporting for mines. Under the “Part 50” regulations, mines must immediately report serious injuries or incidents, 30 C.F.R. § 50.10; must report all mine accidents, injuries, and occupational illnesses as they occur on forms called 7000-1 reports, § 50.20; and must report employee work hours and total coal production for each quarter on forms called 7000-2 reports, § 50.30. MSHA uses Part 50 reports to calculate for all mines the “Incidence Rates,” which are the number of injuries or illnesses per employee hour worked, and “Severity Measures,” which take into account the severity of injuries per employee hour worked. See 30 C.F.R. § 50.1. These reports permit MSHA “to investigate, and to obtain and utilize information pertaining to, accidents, injuries, and illnesses occurring or originating in mines.” Id. MSHA also makes all of this compiled data 6 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 publicly available on its website. See MSHA Statistics, www.msha.gov/stats/statinfo.htm (last visited April 24, 2013). In addition to requiring mine operators to submit the 7000-1 and 7000-2 reports, the Part 50 regulations require mine operators to maintain copies of those records and to permit MSHA to verify the information in those reports. The provision at the center of the controversy here is section 50.41, which permits MSHA to verify the information in the reports: Upon request by MSHA, an operator shall allow MSHA to inspect and copy information related to an accident, injury or illnesses which MSHA considers relevant and necessary to verify a report of investigation required by § 50.11 of this part or relevant and necessary to a determination of compliance with the reporting requirements of this part. 30 C.F.R. § 50.41. The Mine Safety Act authorizes MSHA to enforce these reporting requirements through citations and orders, 30 U.S.C. § 814(a), “failure to abate” penalty fees when a mine has not abated a previously-cited violation, § 814(b), and withdrawal orders, which require a mine to be evacuated and shut down, § 814(d). Mine operators can challenge citations and orders in a hearing before an administrative law judge whose deci- sion is appealable to the Commission. § 815(d). While the contest hearing is pending, mine operators can request temporary relief from certain penalties and other orders. § 815(b)(2). Mine operators can petition for Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 7 review of final orders of the Commission by a federal court of appeals, § 816(a)(1), as petitioners have done here.
During inspections of several mines in October 2010, MSHA inspectors presented letters ordering the mine operators to have several pieces of information and documents related to the 7000-1 and 7000-2 reports from July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010 “available for review” during their next inspections. The demanded documents included:

and Production Reports 3. All payroll records and time sheets for all individuals working at your mine for the covered time period 4. The number of employees working at the mine for each quarter 5. All medical records, doctor’s slips, worker compensation filings, sick leave requests or reports, drug testing documents, emergency medical transportation records, and medical claims forms in your possession relating to accidents, injuries, or illnesses that occurred at the mine or may have resulted from work at the mine for all individuals working at your mine for the period of July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010. Joint App. 32. 8 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 MSHA sent this letter to thirty-nine mines, including two mines operated by Peabody Energy Company. Counsel for MSHA later told the Commission that the thirty-nine mines were selected because, “but for supposedly low severity measures . . . they would have met the criteria for a potential pattern of violations screening.” Comm’n Tr. at 45. MSHA designates a mine as having a “pattern of violations” (“POV”) when the mine has established a history of significant and substantial violations of mandatory safety or health standards. 30 U.S.C. § 814(e); see also 30 C.F.R. §§ 104.1 et seq. Once a mine is in POV status, MSHA has increased authority to institute safety precautions, which can involve burdensome administrative requirements and disruption of mine activities. See 30 U.S.C. § 814(e) (authorizing withdrawal orders after a POV notice); 30 C.F.R. § 104.4 (requiring mine operators to post all POV notifications and listing actions a mine operator may be required to take upon issuance of a POV notice). Thus, MSHA had determined, based on other data it collected, that these thirty-nine mines’ Incidence Rates and Severity Measures were statistically lower than MSHA’s calculations indicated they should be. MSHA suspected that the mines might be under-reporting injuries to avoid the increased scrutiny that would come with POV status. Reviewing employee medical and personnel records could enable MSHA to determine if more em- ployees had been injured or ill than the mines had reported. When MSHA representatives first presented the initial demand letter to two Peabody-owned mines, Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 9 mine personnel complied with the requests to produce the 7000-1 and 7000-2 reports and the number of em- ployees working at the mine for each quarter (items 1, 2, and 4), but they refused to produce payroll and medical records (items 3 and 5). MSHA sent another letter on October 28, 2010, demanding the same list of documents. Counsel for petitioner Peabody and another mine operator, petitioner Big Ridge, responded to the October 28 letter with a letter explaining that the mine operators would not comply with the medical and payroll record demands because they did not believe the demands were within MSHA’s authority. They also expressed concern for the privacy rights of miners and privacy of the mines’ “confidential business information.” Joint App. 70, 72. MSHA inspectors returned to two mines operated by Peabody on November 9, 2011, and again demanded the medical and personnel records. The mine operators again refused, and the inspectors issued citations under 30 U.S.C. § 814(a). With the dispute having already been teed up, the citations listed the failure-to-abate period as fifteen minutes, meaning that the mine operators would have fifteen minutes from the time the citation was issued to comply with the underlying demand before MSHA could begin imposing failure-toabate penalties under section 814(b). When, after fifteen minutes passed, mine personnel again refused to produce the records, the inspectors issued failure-to-abate orders under section 814(b). MSHA later imposed a penalty fee of $4,000 per day in conjunction with the failure-toabate order on one mine, Peabody Midwest. 10 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 The mine operators contested the orders and citations, and the case was heard by an administrative law judge. MSHA stayed the daily failure-to-abate penalties while the hearing was pending. In two opinions issued on May 20, 2011, the ALJ affirmed the citations and orders, finding that (1) the medical and personnel records MSHA sought were relevant to the mines’ compliance with reporting regulations, (2) MSHA was authorized to demand the records as part of a Part 50 audit, and (3) the demands did not impose an unreasonable burden on the mine operators. The mine operators appealed to the Commission, which consolidated several similar cases. A group of miners who objected to the record demands intervened and filed briefs. The Commission affirmed the orders and citations on May 24, 2012. The Commission held that MSHA was authorized to make the demands under sections 813(a) and (h) and Part 50.41. The Commission also held that the demands did not violate either the mine operators’ or the miners’ privacy or Fourth Amendment rights, that the demands did not violate mine operators’ Fifth Amendment right to due process, and that the demands did not conflict with other federal and state laws. One commissioner dissented, arguing that MSHA would need to undertake additional notice-and-comment rulemaking to have the authority to demand the records without offending the Fourth or Fifth Amendments. The mine operators and miners petitioned for review of the Commission’s decision, raising all of the objections they raised before the Commission. Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 11