Cite as: 534 U. S. 438 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
itly, as demonstrated by other sections in the Act that give the option of attaching liability to "successors" and "successors in interest."
For example, § 9706(b)(2) provides that with respect to beneficiaries of the Combined Fund, "[i]f a person becomes a successor of an assigned operator after the enactment date [of the Coal Act], the assigned operator may transfer the assignment of an eligible beneficiary . . . to such successor, and such successor shall be treated as the assigned operator with respect to such eligible beneficiary for purposes of this chapter." (Emphasis added.) The subsection also provides, however, that "the assigned operator transferring such assignment (and any related person) shall remain the guarantor of the benefits provided to the eligible beneficiary under this chapter." Ibid. While this provision gives a postenactment successor the option of transferring the assignment and assuming the signatory operator's liability, it does not address the liability of preenactment successors.
Further, § 9711 enumerates the continuing obligations of Individual Employer Plans (IEPs) maintained pursuant to a 1978 or subsequent coal wage agreement.12 Section 9711(g)(1) provides that "[f]or [the] purposes of" IEPs and the 1992 UMWA Benefit Plan, "[t]he term 'last signatory operator' shall include a successor in interest of such operator." Thus, in § 9711, Congress gave "last signatory operator" a subsection-specific definition that extends the IEP obligations of a preenactment signatory operator to include its "successors in interest."
Those subsections stand in direct contrast to the provisions implicated here: §§ 9701(c)(1), (2), and (4), which define "signatory operator," "related persons," and "last signatory operator," respectively, "[f]or [the] purposes of this section,"
12 The rules applicable to successors of signatory operators who maintain such plans are provided in §§ 9711(g)(1) and (2); § 9711(g)(2) discusses the obligations of a person who becomes a successor of a last signatory operator postenactment, and is nearly identical to § 9706(b)(2).
453
Page: Index Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007