Crowe Ex Rel. Crowe v. Zeigler Coal Co.

The Black Lung Benefits Act, 30 U.S.C. §§ 901-45, and the regulatory scheme that accompanies it, create a complicated process for adjudicating benefits claims by coal industry employees who become disabled as a result of their employment. As we have noted on numerous occasions, in creating this system, Congress deliberately prized accuracy over finality. The statute accomplishes this task by allowing agency reexamination of claims to a degree far exceeding the norm in our judicial system.1

In the case before us, it took the agency and the courts more than twenty years to assess the facts of…