Circuit Judge Wilkins, writing for a divided panel, concluded that "the best reading of the statute based on its text, structure, context, and history defines a 'facility' as a 'mine' under subsection (C) when it is necessarily connected with the use and operation of extracting, milling, or processing coal and other minerals."
The case returned to the D.C. Circuit after the Supreme Court vacated its 2023 decision and remanded for reconsideration in light of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. Applying independent judgment without agency deference, the panel held the West Virginia facility qualified as a mine under 30 U.S.C. § 802(h)(1)(C).
The dispute arose from a March 11, 2019 inspection at KC Transport's Emmett, West Virginia facility, where an MSHA inspector observed two trucks raised and unblocked during maintenance. One truck was jacked up with its back wheels removed; the second was raised with a miner underneath it, "standing on the frame of the truck." The inspector cited KC Transport for violating 30 C.F.R. § 77.404(c), which requires that machinery be "blocked against motion" during repairs.
The Commission had previously vacated the citations, holding that "an independent repair, maintenance, or parking facility not located on or appurtenant to a mine site and not engaged in any extraction, milling, preparation, or other activities within the scope of subsection 3(h)(1)(A) is not a mine within the meaning of section 3(h) of the Mine Act."
The panel rejected that locational test. Wilkins wrote that the facility "is located less than 1,000 feet from Ramaco's private haul road, about a mile from its coal processing plant, and less than five miles from its nearest extraction site." Sixty percent of the services KC Transport provided at the facility were for Ramaco Resources, and the cited trucks "were actively being used to haul coal from the Ramaco extraction site to the preparation plant."
The court also addressed a structural Article II challenge raised by KC Transport, which argued the case was an impermissible intra-Executive dispute because the Secretary of Labor was suing the Commission. Wilkins called that objection "more theoretical than real," noting the Commission had announced it "will not be participating as an active litigant in the proceeding" and "will stand on the decision it issued in its adjudicative capacity." Borrowing language from Justice Thomas's 2002 dissent in National Cable & Telecommunications Ass'n v. Gulf Power Co., the panel described the constitutional challenge as "nothing more than a tempest in a teapot."
To eliminate any constitutional question, the panel struck the Commission as a respondent under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 2, leaving the Secretary and KC Transport as the adverse parties. The court relied on its 1982 decision in Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union v. OSHRC, which similarly removed an adjudicatory body from a caption.
Wilkins surveyed legislation enacted by the First, Second, Third and Fourth Congresses authorizing intra-Executive lawsuits, including statutes permitting the Comptroller of the Treasury to sue customs officers and the Postmaster General to sue deputy postmasters. He wrote that those early statutes are "compelling authority that intra-Executive suits authorized by Congress do not contradict the Framers' understanding of the separation of powers."
On the merits, the panel rejected the Sixth Circuit's adjacency test from Maxxim Rebuild Co. v. Federal Mine Safety & Health Review Commission, finding that "[t]he text of subsection (C) imposes no strict adjacency or 'on location' restriction." Wilkins reasoned that reading subsection (C) to require an extraction-site location "duplicates the coverage of subsection (A)" and "violates the rule against surplusage."
The panel also pointed to legislative history showing that Congress intended "that what is considered to be a mine and to be regulated under this Act be given the broadest possibl[e] interpretation," and "that doubts be resolved in favor of inclusion of a facility within the coverage of the Act." Wilkins cited the 1972 Buffalo Creek dam collapse as a Congressional reference point, observing that "the closest of the three failed Buffalo Creek dams was over 0.6 miles from the coal preparation plant."
Circuit Judge Pan filed a concurring opinion, writing that "a purely adjudicatory body — like the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (the 'Commission') — is not a proper party when this court reviews one of its decisions."
Circuit Judge Walker dissented. The penalties at issue total $3,908 for citation No. 9222038 and $4,343 for citation No. 9222040.
The Secretary was represented by Susannah M. Maltz of the U.S. Department of Labor. KC Transport was represented by James P. McHugh and Aditya Dynar. West Virginia and 19 other states filed an amicus brief supporting KC Transport, while the AFL-CIO supported the Secretary.