Center for Public Integrity

Coal industry’s go-to law firm withheld evidence of black lung, at expense of sick miners

BECKLEY, W.Va., The stately, wood-paneled chamber in the federal building here unsettled Gary Fox and his wife, Mary. Fox was used to the dusty caverns of the mines in the southern part of the state, where he’d spent more than 25 years working underground in the heart of Appalachian coal country. They had never been in a courtroom before.