Years after black lung claim was wrongly denied, coal miner gets his due
It took more than nine years of fighting and, ultimately, his death, but coal miner Steve Day has won his claim for federal black lung benefits, assuring his family a modest but much-needed monthly check.
Day's initial claim for benefits, filed in 2005, was wrongfully denied primarily because of reports and testimony by doctors at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, which had become the coal industry's go-to institution for obtaining negative readings of X-rays to help defeat sick miners' cases.
But, in a rare move on Oct. 23, Patriot Coal agreed to stop fighting Day and his widow and to begin paying her $947.70 a month, as well as about $40,000 in benefits that had accumulated over the time it contested the claim. The company's decision is uncommon in a system in which coal giants typically wage protracted battles to avoid paying benefits, even when miners are extremely ill and are being treated for black lung.
Patriot's decision to concede came two weeks after BuzzFeed News told Day's story, detailing how his autopsy definitively showed that the negative readings in his case by doctors at Johns Hopkins were wrong.
"I think he would be very happy now," Day's daughter Patience, 30, said of her father. "I just think it's a shame that it took his death to open people's eyes."
Patriot, which now owns the company that employed Day for more than 33 years, declined an interview request and would not say why it chose to concede after years of fighting. Instead, it issued a statement that said, "We believe the Company's actions in this case were appropriate and consistent with the medical evidence presented at the time."
The lawyer representing the company, Paul Frampton of the firm Bowles Rice LLP, did not respond to repeated interview requests. Frampton has represented coal companies in many black lung cases, including Day's earlier claim.
Related: A miner's X-ray
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Breathless and Burdened. Dying from black lung, buried by law and medicine. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
