Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Greenwich Collieries
129 L. Ed. 2d 221, 512 US 267, 1994 U.S. LEXIS 4669 (1994)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
The term 'burden of proof' as used in § 7(c) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) means the burden of persuasion. Therefore, the proponent of a rule or order in an administrative adjudication bears the burden of persuasion and must lose if the evidence is evenly balanced.
Facts:
- Andrew Ondecko worked as a coal miner for 31 years.
- Ondecko applied for disability benefits under the Black Lung Benefits Act (BLBA), alleging he was totally disabled by pneumoconiosis (black lung disease) resulting from his employment.
- Michael Santoro, an employee of Maher Terminals, suffered a work-related back and neck injury.
- A few months after his injury, Santoro was diagnosed with nerve cancer and died shortly thereafter.
- Santoro's widow filed a claim under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), alleging the work injury had rendered her husband disabled and caused his death.
Procedural Posture:
- In two separate cases, claimants Andrew Ondecko and the widow of Michael Santoro applied for benefits from the Department of Labor.
- In both cases, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) awarded benefits, relying on the Department of Labor's 'true doubt' rule, which resolves cases with evenly balanced evidence in favor of the claimant.
- The employers, Greenwich Collieries and Maher Terminals, appealed the awards to the Department's Benefits Review Board, which affirmed the ALJs' decisions in both cases.
- The employers then petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for review.
- The Third Circuit, in separate decisions, vacated the award to Ondecko and reversed the award to Santoro's widow, holding that the 'true doubt' rule was inconsistent with the APA.
- The Director of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, as the petitioner, sought and was granted a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve a conflict among the circuit courts.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does the Department of Labor's 'true doubt' rule, which shifts the burden of persuasion to the party opposing a benefits claim when the evidence is evenly balanced, violate § 7(c) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which places the 'burden of proof' on the proponent of a rule or order?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice O'Connor
Yes. The Department of Labor's 'true doubt' rule violates § 7(c) of the APA because the statutory term 'burden of proof' imposes the burden of persuasion on the claimant. The 'true doubt' rule impermissibly shifts this burden to the party opposing the claim. The Court determined that the ordinary meaning of 'burden of proof' at the time of the APA's enactment in 1946 was the burden of persuasion, not merely the burden of production. This conclusion is supported by the historical development of the term in case law, including the Court's own precedent in Hill v. Smith, and by legal scholarship from that era. The Court's prior decision in Steadman v. SEC, which held that the standard of proof under § 7(c) is a preponderance of the evidence, logically requires that 'burden of proof' means burden of persuasion, as a standard of proof can only apply to a burden of persuasion. The Court explicitly rejected a contrary statement made in a footnote in NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp., characterizing it as a cursory conclusion to an unbriefed issue that does not warrant deference. Because the 'true doubt' rule awards benefits to a claimant when the evidence is in equipoise, it contravenes the APA's requirement that the proponent of an order persuade the adjudicator of the merits of their claim.
Dissenting - Justice Souter
No. The 'true doubt' rule is consistent with § 7(c) of the APA because the term 'burden of proof' in the statute refers only to the burden of production (the burden of going forward with evidence), not the burden of persuasion. The dissent argued that the term remained ambiguous in 1946 and that the legislative history of the APA explicitly indicates that Congress intended it to mean the 'burden of coming forward.' Furthermore, the Court's own precedent in NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp. directly held that § 7(c) determines only the burden of going forward, and the principle of stare decisis dictates that this statutory interpretation should be upheld, as Congress has not amended the statute in the intervening years. The dissent contended that the majority's decision ignores clear legislative intent and overturns established precedent, thereby invalidating a long-standing, pro-claimant rule that aligns with the remedial purposes of the underlying benefits statutes.
Analysis:
This decision provides a definitive interpretation of the term 'burden of proof' in the Administrative Procedure Act, resolving a long-standing ambiguity and a split among the circuits. By equating 'burden of proof' with 'burden of persuasion,' the Court invalidated the Department of Labor's 'true doubt' rule and similar burden-shifting mechanisms used by other agencies in formal adjudications. This ruling standardizes the allocation of the risk of non-persuasion across federal agencies, placing it on the party initiating the action unless a statute specifically dictates otherwise. The decision strengthens the procedural uniformity the APA was designed to create but may make it more difficult for claimants to succeed in benefits cases where the evidence is conflicting or inconclusive.
