UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ KEN LICK COAL COMPANY; AMERICAN RESOURCES │ CORPORATION, │ Petitioners, │ > No. 23-3738 │ v. │ │ DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION │ PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR; MARY │ REED, widow of Bob Reed, │ Respondents. │ ┘

On Petition for Review from the Benefits Review Board. No. 22-0009 BLA.

Argued: October 31, 2024

Decided and Filed: February 21, 2025

Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; LARSEN and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. _________________

COUNSEL ARGUED: Michael A. Pusateri, GREENBERG TRAURIG, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Petitioners. Michael P. Doyle, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Washington, D.C., for Federal Respondent. ON BRIEF: Michael A. Pusateri, Mark E. Solomons, GREENBERG TRAURIG, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Petitioners. Michael P. Doyle, Ann Marie Scarpino, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Washington, D.C., for Federal Respondent. No. 23-3738 Ken Lick Coal Co., et al. v. OWCP, et al. Page 2

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OPINION _________________

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. A regulation implementing the Black Lung Benefits Act allows coal miners to file a second claim for benefits after their first claim has been denied if they identify changed circumstances. 20 C.F.R. § 725.309(c). When miners show such a change, the regulation generally allows the parties to relitigate all issues in the proceedings over the second claim. Id. § 725.309(c)(5). Yet it adds that a “stipulation” that a party “made” when litigating the first claim “will be binding” in those later proceedings. Id. That provision proved critical in this case. An administrative law judge required Ken Lick Coal Company to pay a miner’s benefits solely because of a stipulation the company allegedly made when litigating the miner’s earlier claim. But we hold that this purported “stipulation” addressed the law rather than the facts, so the judge had the power to disregard it. And the judge made clear that he would not have required Ken Lick to pay the benefits but for the stipulation. We thus grant Ken Lick’s petition for review and transfer the liability on the miner’s claim to the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund.

I

A

After years of inhaling coal dust in coal mines, miners can develop a lung condition medically known as pneumoconiosis and commonly known as black-lung disease. See Ark. Coals, Inc. v. Lawson, 739 F.3d 309, 312–13 (6th Cir. 2014). Congress passed the Black Lung Benefits Act “to provide benefits” to miners who become disabled from this disease and to their eligible survivors. 30 U.S.C. § 901(a). It delegated “broad authority” to the Secretary of Labor to identify the miners who should receive benefits and the coal companies who should pay for them. Island Creek Coal Co. v. Bryan, 937 F.3d 738, 743 (6th Cir. 2019); see 30 U.S.C. § 932(c).

The Secretary