Supreme Court Ruling Threatens More Delays in Black Lung Cases (Lucia v. SEC)
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a major decision that threatens many more delays in federal black lung cases.
On its surface, the issue in Lucia v. SEC (slip op. here) appears to have nothing to do with black lung. The case concerned whether Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) who work for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are “Officers” under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause who must be hired through a specific process. The Supreme Court held that SEC ALJs are “Officers” and because the ALJ in Mr. Lucia’s case was not hired through the right process (and Mr. Lucia made a proper challenge) then Mr. Lucia gets a new hearing before a different ALJ who is properly appointed.
This issue, however, is important to people affected by black lung because the Department of Labor (DOL) uses ALJs with similar duties to SEC ALJs to determine whether coal miners and their survivors should get federal black lung benefits. Based on how the Supreme Court found the SEC ALJs to be “Officers,” it is likely that DOL ALJs are similarly affected. And because Lucia said that new hearings before different ALJs are required, this means that many black lung cases are likely going to need to have new hearings before different ALJs.
There are huge questions about how many cases will be affected and and how burdensome this will be for DOL.
In December 2017, the Secretary of Labor ratified the appointments of all existing ALJs. This should cure the legal problem going forward, but we don’t really know—the Supreme Court refused to rule on whether ratification fixes the problem (see n.6 of the Court’s opinion).
And its also unclear how many black lung cases are affected. Mr. Lucia made a timely challenge under the Appointments Clause and the Court’s opinion emphasized this in explaining why he got the remedy of a new hearing (see p.12 of the slip opinion). The Supreme Court did not give any guidance on what should be done with cases where an Appointments Clause challenge was not timely.
These layers of uncertainty cause additional confusion for coal miners and their families. As mentioned on this blog before, my office wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the National Black Lung Association in which we discussed the practical problems that could result from a holding like what the Supreme Court did here.
As our amicus brief said, a decision like what the Supreme Court did, “could open the door to vacating and modifying past ALJ decisions in black lung cases. This, in turn, would exacerbate a backlog that already has serious human consequences. Many coal miners die before their black lung benefits claim is finally decided.”
In the black lung benefits system the only thing that is clear immediately after Lucia is that the uncertainty will lead to years of costly litigation on these issues as they move through the system and precedent becomes established.
Hopefully, the Department of Labor and the lower courts can find a solution that minimizes this human impact on the people that the black lung benefits system was meant to provide for. The Supreme Court didn’t make the job any easier though.
4 Responses to “Supreme Court Ruling Threatens More Delays in Black Lung Cases (Lucia v. SEC)”
Can this ruling also affect Social Security Disability ALJ’s?
Given the Court’s reasoning I don’t see why not. Mr. Lucia’s lawyer argued that his argument should only apply to adversarial hearings (i.e., not Social Security) but the Court didn’t draw that line.
have been denied twice.even with doctors saying i have black lung dont knw where to go from here.havent heatd from my attorney in a year and a half.he is busy,
Sorry to hear that! I wish you the best! It can be a very long and frustrating process.
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