Court Ruling Favors 2 Coal Miners Who Sued Over Trump Cuts

A federal judge has issued another favorable ruling for two coal miners who sued to get black lung benefits.

U.S. District Judge Irene Berger on Thursday let Matthew Ward, a Mingo County coal miner, join a lawsuit against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Harry Wiley, a Kanawha County coal miner, sued Kennedy and HHS in April after Kennedy began cutting a program that screens coal miners for black lung.

Berger issued an injunction in May ordering HHS to restore the Coal Worker Health Surveillance Program at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The functions of the program have been mostly restored, including a mobile black lung clinic.

The clinic visited western Pennsylvania last month and Morgantown earlier this month. It is scheduled to visit western Maryland later this month, followed by eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia in September.

It is not scheduled to visit southern West Virginia, where Wiley and Ward live and work, nor anywhere else in central Appalachia, where the highest number of new black lung cases are concentrated.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston, seeks class action status on behalf of miners who have black lung and miners who want to be screened for black lung.

Black lung can’t be cured, but its progression can be slowed by reducing exposure to coal and silica dust.

A separate case in a federal appeals court has delayed the implementation of a new silica dust rule until October. It was supposed to take effect in April.