Case: Health Care & Benefits/Disability Benefits (4th Cir.)

The Fourth Circuit granted a petition for review of a Black Lung Benefits Act claim, vacating the benefits review board’s decision and remanding the case, holding that a coal miner with respiratory impairment need only show 125 working days in a coal mine within a one-year period to establish a year of employment for purposes of the BLBA’s fifteen-year presumption, rather than requiring a 365-day employment relationship with Island Creek Kentucky Mining as incorrectly interpreted by the Administrative Law Judge.

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