{Charleston, West Virginia}...Dozens of retired coal miners from around the country are sending letters to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley C. Chapman, a federal judge in New York City, to let her know how they feel about the Patriot Coal bankruptcy and its potential impact on their pensions and health-care benefits. Patriot employs about 2,000 active union members in West Virginia and Kentucky, and the company is currently responsible for more than 10,000 retirees and another 10,000 dependents, most of them in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Patriot filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in July in New York, and also cited environmental costs of treating selenium pollution, saying it could run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Last month, lawyers for Patriot and various citizen groups told U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers in Huntington that a deal on how to handle selenium liabilities had fallen through. Patriot wants Chapman to issue an order exempting the selenium litigation from a bankruptcy-related hold on all Patriot lawsuits so the company can ask for more time to clean up its pollution. Last month, when a New York hearing was video-streamed into Charleston, Chapman told lawyers she was not interested in hearing how many miners packed the courtroom to watch the hearing or gathered outside for a United Mine Workers' rally. The UMW is seeking to move the case to Charleston.Monday, October 8, 2012
Miners Seek Help From New York Judge
{Charleston, West Virginia}...Dozens of retired coal miners from around the country are sending letters to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley C. Chapman, a federal judge in New York City, to let her know how they feel about the Patriot Coal bankruptcy and its potential impact on their pensions and health-care benefits. Patriot employs about 2,000 active union members in West Virginia and Kentucky, and the company is currently responsible for more than 10,000 retirees and another 10,000 dependents, most of them in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Patriot filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in July in New York, and also cited environmental costs of treating selenium pollution, saying it could run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Last month, lawyers for Patriot and various citizen groups told U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers in Huntington that a deal on how to handle selenium liabilities had fallen through. Patriot wants Chapman to issue an order exempting the selenium litigation from a bankruptcy-related hold on all Patriot lawsuits so the company can ask for more time to clean up its pollution. Last month, when a New York hearing was video-streamed into Charleston, Chapman told lawyers she was not interested in hearing how many miners packed the courtroom to watch the hearing or gathered outside for a United Mine Workers' rally. The UMW is seeking to move the case to Charleston.