Adjudication of Black Lung Claims by Labor's Office of Administrative Law Judges and Benefits Review Board

In response to a congressional request, testimony was given on a GAO review of the adjudication of black lung claims by the Department of Labor's Office of Administrative Law Judges (OALJ) and Benefits Review Board. The review disclosed that, as of September 30, 1984, OALJ had an inventory of 20,450 black lung cases that had not been decided. On that date, the Board had over 5,230 pending black lung cases. Between October, 1, 1983, and August 21, 1984, OALJ disposed of over 4,800 black lung cases, and 78 percent of these dispositions took more than 2 years from the time OALJ received them. The Board was taking, on the average, about 27 months to dispose of an appealed black lung case. For OALJ, it would take over 35 years to reduce its backlog of cases to a more reasonable level. If OALJ is successful in implementing plans to dispose of about 6,600 cases per year, the backlog could be reduced to reasonable levels in about 10 years. For the Board, the backlog could be reduced to a reasonable level by the end of fiscal year 1990. However, if OALJ increases its dispositions, more cases are likely to be appealed to the Board and its backlog would not be reduced to reasonable levels until fiscal year 1996. OALJ is implementing plans to borrow administrative law judges from other federal agencies and contract with retired judges to assist in preparing decisions. The Board, which has been expanded from three to nine members, is expected to almost triple its disposition rate.