Utah judge orders mine group to pay full benefits to family

A Murray Energy Corp. subsidiary has been ordered to pay full benefits to the family of a miner killed in the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster.

An administrative law judge for the Utah Labor Commission ordered Genwal Resources Inc. and Rockwood Casualty Insurance Co. to pay $565 per week for 312 weeks from the date of the fatal accident to the family of Juan Carlos Payan. The commission announced the order Wednesday, following proceedings that began in November 2007.

The family had claimed that Payan, 22, had been the main source of support for his disabled father, mother and two young siblings in Ensenada, Mexico — a city about 70 miles south of Tijuana, on the Baja peninsula. Payan's father, Jose Luis Payan, had been partially blinded in an accident and was no longer able to continue his work as a trucker, said the family's lawyer, Edward Havas.

The companies had argued that they should not have to pay the full benefits amount because Payan had two other siblings working in Utah to help the family, and he wasn't the sole benefactor.

But in a hearing before commission Judge Aurora Holley last September, Juan Carlos Payan's sister, Miriam Castro, testified that she often wired his entire paycheck to Mexico. He had been living with her family in a mobile home in Huntington.

He had started working in Utah coal mines before he turned 16, first for the Co-op Mine and then at nearby Crandall Canyon, where he began in 2004, after a strike over pay and working conditions at the Co-op Mine, according to court records.

Havas argued at the hearing that no records or witnesses could deny the family's contention that Payan alone was supporting his parents and young siblings in Mexico.

Holley, in her ruling, agreed that Payan's family should receive full benefits. "A preponderance of the evidence shows that petitioners were, at a minimum, partially dependent on decedent at the time of his industrial death," she wrote. "As a result, petitioners shall be awarded full death benefits."

Havas said the benefits can be extended if the parents, Jose Luis Payan and Isabel Villa, can demonstrate continued need for compensation in the future.

Bret Gardner, attorney for Genwal Resources and Rockwell Insurance, did not return a phone call seeking comment Wednesday.