Micheal W. Buckner, as Trustee of the United Mine Workers of America 1992 Benefit Plan, et al. v. United States Pipe & Foundry Co., et al.

To ensure that retired coal miners receive healthcare benefits, the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 (“Coal Act”) imposes continuing and periodic statutory duties on certain coal companies and their affiliates. As long as covered companies are in business, they must maintain individual employer plans (“IEPs”) and pay monthly and annual premiums to support two healthcare benefit plans the Act created. In holding that a covered company cannot be enjoined to maintain an IEP after bankruptcy, the Eleventh Circuit rejected a test announced in Ohio v. Kovacs, 469 U.S. 274 (1985), and used by at least five circuits for determining which rights to equitable relief are dischargeable “claims,” 11 U.S.C. § 101(5)(B). And, in holding that a covered company need not pay Coal Act premiums incurred after its bankruptcy ends, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the Second and Tenth Circuits’ holdings that Coal Act premiums, like taxes and other statutory exactions, are incurred periodically and thus dischargeable only as to premiums incurred before bankruptcy ends. The questions presented are:

1. Whether the equitable right to compel a covered company to maintain an IEP is a dischargeable “claim” under 11 U.S.C. § 101(5)(B).

2. Whether the Eleventh Circuit erred in holding that a covered company’s Coal Act obligations arose, once and for all time, when the Act became law, such that a bankruptcy discharge relieves a company from its statutory obligations to maintain an IEP and pay Coal Act premiums incurred after bankruptcy.