Massey executives sue to avoid testifying in investigation of disaster that killed 29 miners

Six Massey Energy executives, including the company's safety director, have filed a lawsuit challenging subpoenas that would force them to answer questions about the April explosion that killed 29 West Virginia coal miners. "Lawyers for Massey . . . mine managers allege the state Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training is wrongly using its subpoena power to help federal Mine Safety and Health Administration officials force them to appear for interviews with investigators," Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reports.

"It is apparent that MSHA has inveigled OMHST to serve as MSHA's stalking horse in this matter, a role the state of West Virginia neither has nor could assign to the state agency," the lawyers wrote in papers filed in Raleigh County Circuit Court. Longtime mine safety advocate J. Davitt McAteer, who is conducting an independent probe of the disaster for Gov. Joe Manchin, countered, "It is unprecedented in the history of mining accidents in this country for a substantial group of mine management to refuse to provide information which will help to prevent this kind of accident from occurring in the future."

In the filings, the Massey executives specifically object to MSHA investigators taking part in any witness interviews conducted by state officials. State law allows West Virginia officials to compel witnesses for questioning about mining accidents in private or public hearings, but federal law allows MSHA to only issue subpoenas for public hearings, Ward writes. MSHA officials did not respond to request for comment about the Massey lawsuit. (Read more)