Opinion ID: 1252614
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Availability of Records Near Time of Death

Text: Dr. Sherman, the ALJ and the Board all highlight the absence of any medical records for the two days prior to Hill's death, and use that to support the conclusion that the record is inconclusive as to whether Mr. Hill died due to pneumoconiosis. However, such analysis is inconsistent with the parallel regulatory scheme provided by the Social Security Administration. 20 C.F.R. § 410.462(b) states: Where the evidence establishes that a deceased miner suffered from pneumoconiosis or a respirable disease and death may have been due to multiple causes, death will be found due to pneumoconiosis if it is not medically feasible to distinguish which disease caused death or specifically how much each disease contributed to causing death. Moreover, given the uncontradicted evidence on this record, we can think of nothing that suggests either that some mysterious force intervened or that Mr. Hill's pneumoconiosis underwent a miraculous reversal and his blood oxygen levels returned to normal right before he died. Here, medical records from a mere five days before Hill's death document the complications of his pneumoconiosis. Dr. Sherman's report does not offer a credible theory that would explain how Mr. Hill would have been somehow able to shake off the effect of pneumoconiosis in the two days before he died so that his respiratory arrest, renal failure, arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and anemia were somehow not exacerbated by the respiratory disease that he had suffered from for so many years prior to his death. We are simply unable to imagine anything that could have been revealed by a medical examination during the final 48 hours of Mr. Hill's life that would have undermined the force of Dr. Carey's testimony, or the validity his conclusions, and neither the ALJ nor the Board suggests anything that could have had that effect. [C]ourts have long acknowledged that pneumoconiosis is a progressive irreversible disease.... Labelle, 72 F.3d at 315. Dr. Sherman's report in no way undermines Dr. Carey's opinion that low oxygen levels in the blood associated with pneumoconiosis or COPD can compromise every system in the body. Yet, both the ALJ and Dr. Sherman were reluctant to conclude that Hill's death was due to pneumoconiosis because no one saw him on August 7, the day he died, or within the two days before he passed away. The implication that such records are mandatory for the receipt of benefits places an unfair and inappropriate burden on any petitioner or claimant. Regrettably, the result here is more consistent with an attempt to justify denying benefits than with a neutral inquiry into whether the record establishes eligibility for benefits. The ALJ's focus on the time immediately preceding death would raise insurmountable obstacles to an eligible survivor, conditioning determination of benefits not on a miner's medical history, but on the timing of doctors' visits. The law simply does not require a miner with a respiratory system that has been ravaged by mine-related pneumoconiosis to hang on until a physician can document his last moment of life so that the survivor will be able to document that his impaired respiratory system hastened his death. [10]