Court Opinion

ID: 9490079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:32:12.019812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:53.184551
License: Public Domain

WALD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
The majority upholds the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission’s (“the Commission”) interpretation of the word “knowingly” as incorporating a “constructive knowledge” or “reason to know” standard, see majority opinion at 364, but rejects the Administrative Law Judge’s (“ALJ”) application of that standard to petitioners James Yancik and Neal Merrifield. Because I find that the record amply demonstrates that the ALJ did not err in finding that these petitioners had reason to know of the dangerous condition of the walkway that collapsed, I dissent from the portion of the majority opinion that vacates the penalties imposed on them under section 110(c) of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977.
The collapse which led to the imposition of sanctions against Yancik and Merrifield was not the first to occur in the Orient No. 6 Mine’s old preparation plant — six years earlier a conveyor belt had collapsed, just sixty feet from the beam that caused the tragic accident in 1993. Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 59. At that time, James Yancik was the plant’s Manager of Quality Control and Preparation Plant. Maintenance, reporting to Neal Merrifield, the Mine Superintendent. This earlier collapse starkly demonstrated the er*365oding effect that the corrosive atmosphere inside the plant had on exposed metal structures, and led the Freeman United Coal Mining Company (“the Company”) to undertake a long-term rehabilitation program.
In 1989, two years after that first collapse, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (“MSHA”) advised the Company to hire a consultant to evaluate the plant’s structural condition. The Company hired the Roberts and Schaefer Company (“R&S”), the firm that designed the plant, to conduct the evaluation. An R&S engineer, accompanied by Yaneik, toured the plant, and on November 80, 1989, R&S issued its Report to Determine Structural Integrity of Existing Coal Preparation Plant for Freeman United Coal Company Orient No. 6 Mine (“R&S Report”), which both Yaneik and Merrifield received and read. The second text page of this report included the following warning: “Among the items that need immediate attention are beams and columns where holes exist or can be 'punched out with a hammer Exhibits Volume One, Tab 3, at 3 (emphasis added). The fourth and final text page reiterated the point that visual inspections alone could not adequately establish the safety of metal beams:
Although structure appears to be sound in general these findings are based only upon a visual inspection. No load tests or calculations were performed to determine actual stresses. Extent of deterioration and actual safety of structure cannot be determined without extensive measuring, testing, and calculation.
Id. at 5 (emphasis added). There followed a list of recommendations, of which the first was “[p]ower tool cleaning, priming, and painting of all steel, to prevent further deterioration.” Id.
For six years after the 1987 conveyor belt collapse, and for three and a half years after Yaneik and Merrifield had read the explicit warnings in the R&S Report, both of them permitted miners to use walkways daily that were supported by exposed metal beams that had never been tested to establish their safety. Given that history, I cannot fathom how the majority reaches the conclusion — in the face of the earlier collapse, the warnings in the R&S Report, and the ongoing process of corrosion obviously taking place between the first and second collapses — that the plant’s Manager of Quality Control and Mine Supervisor had no “reason to know” that a beam sixty feet away from the one that failed in 1987 could fail in 1993, if it were not replaced or reinforced, or even tested, in the interim. See majority opinion at 364. Knowing that a nearby beam had collapsed and that its failure had been caused by a corrosive atmosphere which affected all of the plant’s beams, and having been expressly warned against relying on mere visual inspections, Yaneik and Merrifield had ample reason to test those beams that supported platforms on which miners were required to walk every day. And the record clearly shows that, had they tested the beam that eventually failed in 1993, they would have discovered that it was unsafe. See Transcript at 245. Thus, Yaneik and Merrifield had the “reason to know” required for liability under section 110(c).
My colleagues’ claim that the record cannot support this conclusion, see majority opinion at 364, is incomprehensible to me; but they also appear to assert that even if Yaneik and Merrifield did have constructive knowledge of a risk, they were “addressing that risk responsibly by conducting regular inspections and repairs.” Id. On this issue I note, first, that the record incontrovertibly shows that Yancik’s and Merrifield’s constructive knowledge involved a risk of a far more severe and particularized sort than the majority’s vague and amorphous reference to a “risk that corrosion of support beams in the old plant could cause structural instability” suggests. Id. Even if they had never read the R&S Report, and even if they could not be charged with the knowledge that six years’ worth of corrosion would eat away substantially all of the plant’s exposed and unrepaired metal beams, Yaneik and Merri-field still had to realize the significant risk of a dangerous collapse caused by the failure of a corroded exposed metal beam, based on the fact that just such a collapse had already occurred in 1987. Second, and more importantly, I fail to see how the visual inspection of the beam that later failed, combined with the repair and replacement of other corroded *366beams in the plant, can support any conclusion that it was “responsible]” to let miners walk on a platform which stood seventeen feet above a concrete floor and was supported by untested, unrepaired exposed metal beams. Id. If my colleagues in the majority were to drive over an old, decaying bridge spanning a mile-deep gorge, I doubt they would take comfort in the knowledge that the bridge authority was repairing all of its old bridges one at a time, and simply hadn’t gotten around to fixing this one yet, or even testing it to determine whether it was safe.
Next the majority refers to the fact that “numerous inspections [were] conducted by the MSHA, state regulators, and the union,” none of whom identified any immediate risk of another collapse. Id. But these inspectors were not privy to the array of information held by Yancik and Merrifield, and lacked the expertise and intimate knowledge of the old preparation plant enjoyed by these veteran mine officials. Furthermore, we would contravene Congress’ intent in providing for the punishment of mine employees involved in “knowing” violations of safety requirements were we to permit mine officials to rely on inspections conducted by outside authorities to insulate themselves from liability.
The last basis on which the majority rests its rejection of the ALJ’s finding of liability simply ignores what the ALJ said. The majority asserts that “the ALJ did not find that Yancik or Merrifield ‘knowingly’ violated 30 C.F.R. § 77.200.” Id. at 364. But he did. See MSHA v. Freeman United Coal Mining, 18 F.M.S.H.R.C. 438, 456 (1996) (“I find that Respondents Merrifield and Yancik ‘knowingly authorized, ordered, or carried out’ a violation of 30 C.F.R. § 77.200.”). The majority then contends that the ALJ could properly find Yancik and Merrifield liable under the “reason to know” standard only if he found them guilty of “aggravated conduct.” Majority opinion at - (quoting MSHA v. BethEnergy Mines, 14 F.M.S.H.R.C. 1232, 1245 (1992)). He did that, too. See Freeman United Coal Mining, 18 F.M.S.H.R.C. at 458 (“The penalties are higher than the penalties proposed by the Secretary because of Respondents aggravated conduct in ignoring the clear steps needed to protect the safety of the miners.”) (emphasis added).
In sum, I believe that the record strongly supports the AL J’s clearly articulated finding regarding the liability of petitioners Yancik and Merrifield, and I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion reversing the Commission’s findings of their individual liability.