454
Opinion of the Court
and do not specify that they include or impose liability on the signatory operator's successor in interest.
Despite the unambiguous language of the statute with respect to those entities to whom successor liability attaches, the Commissioner essentially asks that we read into the statute mandatory liability for preenactment successors in interest to signatory operators. This we will not do. "We refrain from concluding here that the differing language in the two subsections has the same meaning in each. We would not presume to ascribe this difference to a simple mistake in draftsmanship." Russello, supra, at 23. Congress wrote the statute in a manner that provides for liability only for successors in interest to certain signatory operators. If Congress meant to make a preenactment successor in interest like Jericol liable, it could have done so clearly and explicitly.
Therefore, because the statute is explicit as to who may be assigned liability for beneficiaries and neither the "related persons" provision nor any other provision states that successors in interest to signatory operators may be assigned liability, the plain language of the statute necessarily precludes the Commissioner from assigning the disputed miners to Jericol.
IV
The Commissioner admits that the "statute does not state in haec verba that an assignment may be made to a direct successor in interest of the entity that was the signatory operator itself." Brief for Petitioner 10. Nonetheless, the Commissioner concludes that, in light of the text, structure, and purposes of the Coal Act, such direct successors in interest are included within the liability scheme and should be responsible for a signatory operator's Combined Fund premiums if the signatory operator itself is defunct and there is no other "related person" still in business. Ibid. We address the Commissioner's arguments below.
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