Opinion ID: 682711
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Occupational Injury Under Part 50 Regulations.

Text: 11
12 When a court reviews a regulation promulgated pursuant to statute by the agency charged with administration of that statute, the inquiry is twofold. 1 Chevron, 467 U.S. at 842-44, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-83. First, we must determine whether Congress has spoken directly to the question at issue. If so, we must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress. Id. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82. When a statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the question at issue, however, we must ask whether the agency's interpretation is based upon a permissible construction of the statute. Id. at 843, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82. That is, we will defer to an agency's interpretation of the statute it is charged with administering when that interpretation is reasonable. Id. at 844, 104 S.Ct. at 2782-83. Thus, in our review of the Commission decision, our first inquiry is whether the Mine Act speaks unambiguously to what constitutes an occupational injury. See id. at 842, 104 S.Ct. at 2781. 13 Energy West contends that the Secretary's interpretation of the statute conflicts with the plain meaning of the Mine Act. It asserts that the reporting provisions of the Mine Act, 30 U.S.C. Sec. 813(d), (h), (j), do not authorize such a broad definition of occupational injury because each is qualified by the statement of purpose found in the Mine Act, which focuses on improving the health and safety of the miner. 30 U.S.C. Sec. 801(g). Energy West contends that this focus on improvement means that reportable events are limited to those which the mine operator or the Secretary of Labor are capable of preventing. But the statute expresses no such limitation. The Mine Act grants a broad delegation to the Secretary to require mine operators to provide information necessary to enable the Secretary to perform his functions under this chapter. 30 U.S.C. Sec. 813(h). That section contains little limitation on the type of information to be provided. The statute's statement of purpose is not to be read as the strict limiting principle petitioner asserts. In fact, the Mine Act is silent as to the type of occupational injury information which should be reported in order to assist the Secretary in carrying out his duties under the Act. Obedient toChevron, when the statute before us is 'silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue,' before us, we proceed to the second step of theChevron analysis. Nuclear Info. Resource Serv. v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 969 F.2d 1169, 1173 (D.C.Cir.1992) (in banc) (quoting Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843, 104 S.Ct. at 2782). At this stage we defer to the [Secretary's] interpretation of the statute if it is reasonable and consistent with the statute's purpose. Chemical Mfrs. Ass'n v. EPA, 919 F.2d 158, 162-63 (D.C.Cir.1990) (citing Chevron, 467 U.S. at 844-45, 104 S.Ct. at 2782-83). 14 Energy West contends that MSHA's definition of occupational injury in 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.2(e) is unreasonable and inconsistent with the statute's purpose because it does not require a causal nexus between reportable injuries and work activity at the mine. In support, petitioner notes that both the Mine Act and related Part 50 regulations define miner as any individual working in a coal or other mine. 30 U.S.C. Sec. 802(g); 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.2(d). This definition, petitioner argues, allegedly prescribes that only injuries which befall individuals actively working in the mine are reportable, and any provision which requires reporting of non-work-related injuries is therefore unreasonable. We disagree with Energy West's cramped reading of the statute. Under Energy West's definition, an explosion in a mine which injures only workers taking their lunch break on site would not be reportable as an injury because it is not work-related. Surely, it is not unreasonable that the Secretary of Labor should be concerned with this type of injury in carrying out his duties under the Act. 15 We find the Secretary's definition of occupational injury in 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.2(e) reasonable. Among the several duties charged to the Secretary under the Mine Act is the duty to develop, promulgate, and revise as may be appropriate, improved mandatory health or safety standards for the protection of life and prevention of injuries in coal or other mines. 30 U.S.C. Sec. 811(a) (emphasis added). This provision focuses on the location of the injury, not the cause. Similarly, the regulation challenged here defines reportable injuries with an emphasis on situs of the injury rather than the causal nexus, requiring reporting of any injury to a miner which occurs at a mine.... 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.2(e) (emphasis added). It is not unreasonable for the Secretary to require reporting of all non-trivial injuries to miners which occur at the mine site in order to gather information necessary to carry out his rulemaking function under the Act. We therefore find that 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.2(e) is a permissible construction of the Secretary's authority under the Mine Act. 16
17 Secondary to the argument that the regulation misinterprets the statute, petitioner contends that MSHA's interpretation of the regulation, as making reportable lost-time accidents which occur at the mine but are not otherwise work-related, is unreasonable. Specifically, petitioner argues that the Secretary's interpretation impermissibly conflicts with related Part 50 regulations. First, Sec. 50.20(a) requires reporting of each occupational injury ... at the mine. 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.20(a). Energy West asserts that, in order to give effect to each word in that regulation, occupational must mean something other than at the mine. Instead, it must mean work-related. As applied in this case, because Hammond's automobile accident injury was not work-related, petitioner's interpretation would mean that MSHA's citation was improper. 18 On the question of regulatory interpretation, we accord great deference to interpretations such as this one advanced by the Secretary and accepted by the Commission. Secretary of Labor v. Cannelton Indus., Inc., 867 F.2d 1432, 1435 (D.C.Cir.1989) (Secretary's interpretation of Mine Act regulations is emphatically due deference even when it conflicts with Commission interpretation). Our task is not to determine whether the Secretary's interpretation of the regulation charged to his administration is the one we would reach if deciding the question as a matter of first impression. Rather, we will defer to the Secretary's interpretation of his regulations unless it is clearly erroneous. Udall v. Tallman, 380 U.S. 1, 16-17, 85 S.Ct. 792, 801-02, 13 L.Ed.2d 616 (1965). Here the Secretary's interpretation by no means fails that standard. 19 We reject the contention that the Secretary's interpretation renders the language of Sec. 50.20(a) superfluous. Rather, the term occupational, as construed by the Secretary, focuses on the protection of miners, as opposed to those at the mine site for other reasons. See 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.2(e) ([o]ccupational injury involves only an injury to a miner). Injuries to trespassers or visitors are not occupational, and thus not the concern of the Secretary under his interpretation. 20 Energy West also asserts that the Secretary should interpret occupational injury and occupational illness consistently. The Secretary's definition of occupational illness has a work-relatedness requirement. 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.2(f) (occupational illness is any illness or disease of a miner which may have resulted from work at a mine....). Consequently, the Secretary should import the causal nexus requirement into his interpretation of occupational injury. This does not necessarily follow. There are legitimate reasons why the Secretary might interpret the two provisions differently. The situs of an injury is much easier to determine than the situs of an illness. It is unnecessary to determine whether an injury is work-related in order to conclude that it falls within the Secretary's authority to regulate health and safety conditions at the mine. The onset of an illness as opposed to an injury is a transitory, often gradual event with little geographic definition or significance. The fact that an illness occurs in or out of the mine or both says little about the Secretary's authority to regulate related health and safety concerns. This difference between illnesses and injuries justifies, if indeed it does not suggest, a different construction of the adjective occupational when used to limit each of those nouns in the context of defining the Secretary's authority to regulate related health and safety concerns. 21 The Secretary's geographic interpretation of occupational injury finds further support in the Mine Act's definition of mine. The Mine Act defines coal or other mine as (A) an area of land from which minerals are extracted, ... [and], (B) private ways and roads appurtenant to such area.... 30 U.S.C. Sec. 802(h)(1) (1988). The Secretary's application of the occupational injury definition--an injury to a miner which occurs at the mine--to a miner's injury which occurs on a road leading to the mine parking lot is consistent with this statutory definition. 22 Petitioner also argues that MSHA's interpretation frustrates the purpose of Part 50, which it defines as computation of injury rate data. In order to develop and maintain health and safety standards in the industry, the Secretary employs information concerning occupational injuries in determining a statistical incidence rate. See 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.1. That incidence rate is defined as the number of injury cases per hour of employee exposure. Id. Energy West contends that dividing all injuries that occur at the mine, including those that occur before a miner reports to work, by hours of employee exposure, which includes only hours on the job, produces an inherently flawed injury incidence rate. Thus, the Secretary's interpretation here is unreasonable. While we note that the Secretary's interpretation may lead to some distortion in the incidence rate, our task is not to determine whether the interpretation results in a perfect fit. Requiring the reporting of on-site, off-the-clock injuries to miners is not unreasonable, even assuming distortion of the incidence rates, because calculating incidence rates is not the sole purpose for the reporting requirements. In addition to determining statistical rates based upon injury reports, the Secretary uses the information to determine whether measures might be taken to prevent additional injuries of the same kind. In this case, the Secretary might have concluded that a different type of guardrail would prevent future injuries of the kind suffered by Hammond. It is within his authority to require this information to carry out his statutory duty to promulgate and enforce health and safety standards. 23 MSHA's interpretation and the FMSHRC decision applying it are consistent with longstanding Commission precedent. In Freeman United Coal Mining Co., 6 F.M.S.H.R.C. 1577 (1984), MSHA cited a mine operator for failing to report a miner's back injury which occurred on mine property an hour before the beginning of the miner's shift as he was putting on his work boots. Id. at 1578. The Commission upheld the citation, reasoning that the regulations do not require a showing of a causal nexus. Id. at 1579. In considering whether an agency's interpretation of its own regulations is permissible, the consistency with which that interpretation has been applied in the past weighs heavily in the agency's favor. Chemical Waste Management, Inc. v. EPA, 869 F.2d 1526, 1540 (D.C.Cir.1989). In issuing the citation here, MSHA simply concludes that causal nexus is not required under 30 C.F.R. Sec. 50.2(e). MSHA has maintained this position since at least 1984. Its position is entitled to deference as a reasonable, consistently maintained interpretation of MSHA regulations. 24