Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498 (1998), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act (Coal Act) constituted an unconstitutional regulatory taking of property which required the Act to be invalidated. The import of this decision is that it was made in the context of a purely economic regulation. The plurality examines the statute and its resultant harm as an ad hoc factual inquiry based on factors delineated in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, such as the economic impact of the regulation, its interference with reasonable investment backed expectations, and the character of the governmental action. The decision thereby moved beyond the traditional notions of equal protection which had been applied to economic regulation since the time of Lochner v. New York, requiring extreme deference to Congress, and applied a regulatory takings analysis to the problem resulting in a much less deferential result. While the plurality recognizes that this is not a traditional takings case where the government appropriates private property for public use, they also state this is the type of case where the "Armstrong Principle" of preventing the government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole. However, while the plurality seems to invalidate this particular law on takings grounds, the concurrences and the dissents warn of such an analysis as this should actually be examined under substantive due process or ex post facto theories.
Parties
Plaintiff/Petitioner Eastern Enterprises, former coal company that had been assessed the responsibility to fund pensions of many former employees as a function of the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 Defendant/Respondent Kenneth S. Apfel, Commissioner of Social Security Amici Curiae BITUMINOUS COAL OPERATORS' ASSOCIATION, INC., UMWA COMBINED BENEFIT FUND AND ITS TRUSTEES, and the representatives of other extensive interests.
Background
State of law
There are actually several different legal doctrines at work in this case. First, the case was decided under United States Supreme Court takings jurisprudence. The plurality looked to the factors enunciated in Penn Central to determine if the enacted legislation functioned to deprive Eastern Enterprises of property without just compensation. Since Penn Central, the factors enunciated by Justice Brennan therein have been used to determine when a regulation rises to the level of a taking thereby requiring just compensation under the Fifth Amendment. Second, since Lochner v. New York the Court has been reluctant to find on due process grounds that economic regulation was beyond the power of Congress. Third, the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 was passed to remedy the insolvent pension plans of the coal mining labors which had been in place since the 1950s. Fourth, and perhaps not independent, the Court examined the ex post facto nature of the effect of the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 on Eastern. The majority examined such under its Penn Central analysis while the concurrence and the dissents actually looked at it as a distinct basis to hold the Congressional Act unconstitutional.
Facts of case
In 1950 and 1974, the Coal Mining industry established a pension plan for its workers. Under the plans, workers and their families believed they were to receive a pension and future healthcare. The healthcare aspects of the plan however, were disputed and the Coal Companies did not provide the health care as expected. As time wore on, the pensions slowly sank into depression as more and more coal operators withdrew from plan. Eastern Enterprises was a signatory to the pension plans since 1950 until it sold off its holdings in coal operations in 1987. In 1992 Congress passed the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 which required former Coal Operators to pay into the pension in certain situations when the former employee had worked for the company. Such requirement was in place even when the operator no longer was in the Coal Industry. Here, Eastern Enterprises was required to pay into the pension plans for some 100 past employees even though it had sold off its holdings in coal operations.