Sixth Circuit Finds ALJ Applied Incorrect Standard In Black Lung Case
The Sixth Circuit vacated an ALJ’s award of benefits and remanded a black lung case to the Benefits Review Board. The court held that substantial evidence supported the Benefits Review Board’s ALJ’s determination that a miner’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease arose at least in part out of coal mining employment. However, the court found a remand necessary given that the ALJ failed to apply the correct standard in determining that the claimant’s total disability was due to pneumoconiosis.
Under the Black Lung Benefits Act, a miner must show that his pneumoconiosis was “a substantially contributing cause of the miner’s totally disabling respiratory or pulmonary impairment.” The ALJ’s opinion had found that the pneumoconiosis was “due at least in part” to pneumoconiosis, which the Sixth Circuit construed as applying the incorrect standard. The court remanded the case to determine whether the pneumoconiosis for this miner was a substantially contributing cause of the miner’s total disability.
