Brief of Amicus Curiae the Washington and Lee University School of Law Black Lung Clinic in Support of Amicus Curiae Counsel on Severability

Abstract

The Black Lung Clinic (“Clinic”) is a legal clinic at the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia. The Clinic represents former coal miners and survivors who are pursuing federal black lung benefits. The Clinic’s clients are represented by a member of the law school faculty licensed to practice law who works closely with students in the Clinic. Students evaluate claims; develop evidence; conduct discovery, depositions, and hearings; and write motions, arguments, and appellate briefs. In attempting to collect benefits, miners and survivors face formidable teams of lawyers, paralegals, and doctors that the coal companies assemble to challenge these claims. The Clinic currently represents thirty-seven former coal miners and their spouses. Nineteen of these clients are receiving benefits as a direct result of the changes to the Black Lung Benefits Act made in the Affordable Care Act.Section 1556 of the Act makes two major changes to the Black Lung Benefits Act. These changes remove limiting language to make it simpler for disabled miners and their families to establish that they are entitled to federal benefits. First, § 1556(a) reinstates the fifteen-year rebuttable presumption, which presumptively entitles former fifteen years underground and have a totally disabling pulmonary disease. The second, § 1556(b), reinstates a continuation of benefits for surviving spouses whose coal-mining spouse was receiving benefits at the time of their death. The clients of the Clinic already have benefited from these amendments: nineteen clients who are currently receiving black lung benefits will stop receiving those benefits if the Act is invalidated. Thirteen widows and six former miners, all of whom are receiving benefits, will be left without income on which they rely if the Act is struck down in its entirety. The Clinic has a profound interest in the possibility of the invalidation of the Act. If the Act is totally struck down it would adversely affect our clients; not only the ones currently enjoying benefits under the amendments, but all coal miners or surviving spouses who will bring cases in the future.