Opinion ID: 3011091
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: In 1992, Congress enacted the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefits Act (Coal Act), 26 U.S.C.S 9701-9722, to ensure that retired coal miners and their dependents would continue to receive the health and death benefits they had been receiving since the 1940s pursuant to a series of collective bargaining agreements. By the late 1980s, problems had arisen that caused serious under-funding to the two benefit plans funding the miners' benefits. Fearing that the miners and their families would be left with no health or death benefits, Congress stepped in and passed the Coal Act, which provided a new funding mechanism under which the Commissioner of Social Security (Commissioner) would assign miners to a coal industry employer based on the recency and longevity of a miner's employment. That employer then would be responsible for providing the funds for those miners' benefits. The Coal Act has led to a flood of litigation challenging the Commissioner's assignments of liability under the Act, as well as Takings and Due Process challenges to the constitutional validity of the Act's imposition of retroactive liability. Following this legal trend, Anker Energy Corp. (Anker) filed this action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that the Commissioner improperly assigned it responsibility for funding certain miners' benefits and that these assignments violated the Takings and Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Anker also asserted that appellee Consolidation Coal Co. (Consol) had agreed to assume liability for any payments due for miners' benefits and to reimburse Anker for any such payments Anker made, and thus was liable to it for the monies attributable to the assignments. 4 The district court dismissed all of these claims at the pleadings and summary judgment stages of litigation. First, the court granted Consol's motion for judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c) on Anker's claims that the Commissioner should have assigned the miners to Consol, and that Consol had agreed to indemnify Anker for any liability it incurred for the payment of miners' benefits. See Anker Energy Corp. v. Consolidation Coal Co., Civ. No. 96-1938 (W.D. Pa. July 25, 1997) (Anker I). Subsequently, the district court upheld the constitutionality of the application of the Coal Act to Anker on a motion for summary judgment. See Anker Energy Corp. v. Consolidation Coal Co., Civ. No. 96-1938 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 11, 1998) (Anker II). Finally, inasmuch as it had affirmed the imposition of liability against Anker and had determined that Anker was delinquent in its payments under the Act, the district court entered a judgment of $1,180,489.06 against Anker for annual premiums, interest, liquidated damages, attorney's fees, and costs. See Anker Energy Corp. v. Consolidation Coal Co., Civ. No. 96-1938 (W.D. Pa. July 21, 1998) (Anker III). This appeal followed.