Claimants tell appeals court MSHA dust samples can improperly defeat black‑lung claims

Laurie Withrow, representing claimants Wade Boyce and Christopher Sargent, told the court that employers and insurers were using limited MSHA/OSHA dust sampling records to deny occupational pneumoconiosis claims. Withrow argued the regulation allows consideration of samples but does not make them a get‑out‑of‑liability card; she said evidence in the record shows sampling may not have reflected normal working conditions and that some monitors were not worn properly.

Defense counsel Alyssa Kozlowski, representing Quinwood Coal and Alpha Metallurgical Resources, emphasized that the claimant bears the burden to prove exposure at the worksite and that the administrative record included industrial hygienist reports and McIntosh's expert review. The judge and counsel debated whether the regulatory "may" language creates a mandatory evidentiary consequence and how much deference an appellate court should give to the Board of Review's factual weighing. "I don't think that [the sampling evidence] was done here," Withrow said of employer sampling provenance; Kozlowski countered that the Board reviewed the objective records and expert opinions and afforded weight accordingly.

The justices questioned the admissibility and weight of third‑party website samples versus contemporaneous, certified sampling and explored whether the Board's orders provided sufficient analysis; the court submitted the cases after argument.