Jo Anne B. Barnhart, Commissioner of Social Security v. Peabody Coal Company et al. (537 U.S. 149)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 15, 2003 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 537 U.S. 149 · 123 S. Ct. 748
- Decided
- January 15, 2003
- Term
- October Term 2002
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. The Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 (Coal Act or Act) includes the present 26 U. S. C. § 9706(a), providing generally that the Commissioner of Social Security “shall, before October 1, 1993,” assign each coal industry retiree eligible for benefits to an extant operating company or a “related” entity, which shall then be responsible for funding the assigned beneficiary’s benefits. The question is whether an initial assignment made after that date is valid despite its untimeliness. We hold that it is. I We have spoken about portions of the Coal Act in two recent cases, Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U. S. 438 (2002), and Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U. S. 498 (1998), the first of which sketches the Act’s history, 534 U. S., at 442-447. Here, it is enough to recall that in its current form the Act requires the Commissioner to assign, where possible, every coal industry retiree to a “signatory operator,” defined as a signatory of a coal wage agreement specified in § 9701(b)(1). §§ 9701(c)(1), 9706(a). An assignment should turn on a retiree’s employment history with a particular operator, § 9706(a), unless an appropriate signatory is no longer in business, in which case the proper assignee is a “related person” of that operator, defined in terms of corporate associations and relationships not in issue here,…
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