Docket Number: 10012834-2006

NOTICE OF FINAL DECISION

This is the decision of the Final Adjudication Branch (FAB) concerning your claim for compensation under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000, as amended (EEOICPA or the Act), 42 U.S.C. § 7384 et seq. For the reasons stated below, your claim for benefits under Part E of the Act is accepted.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

On September 10, 2003, the FAB issued a final decision which concluded that your father was a member of the Special Exposure Cohort based on his employment at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (GDP), a Department of Energy (DOE) facility, and that he was diagnosed with colon cancer after beginning that employment. For those reasons, the FAB concluded that you, as a surviving child, were entitled to compensation under Part B.

On March 13, 2003, you filed a DOE F 350.2 (Request for Review by Physicians Panel) based on colon cancer having been caused by your father’s work at a DOE facility. A copy of your father’s death certificate shows that his death was due to metastatic mucinous adenocarcinoma. A copy of your father’s autopsy report indicates that colon cancer had metastasized to the peritoneum, omentum, intestines, stomach and liver.

You submitted a copy of your birth certificate which shows that your date of birth is April 23, 1947. A copy of your father’s death certificate shows that he was born on August 16, 1922, and died on November 26, 2002, and that he was widowed at the time of his death.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) provided an itemized statement of earnings for the period of January 2000 to December 2004 which shows that you had no earnings reported for that period. A letter from the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA), Cleveland Regional Office, dated April 21, 2006, shows that you are entitled to receive benefits at the 100% rate, effective December 1, 1997, and that such entitlement continued to the date of this letter. Copies of DVA Rating Decisions, dated March 23, 1995 and April 29, 1997, show that you were found to be permanently and totally disabled from December 30, 1975, and that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was found to be totally disabling from March 9, 1994.

On January 10, 2007, the district office issued a recommended decision which concluded that because your father was a DOE contractor employee who was entitled to compensation under Part B of the Act, it was established that he contracted a covered illness through exposure to radiation at a DOE facility. The recommended decision also concluded that his death was at least as likely as not aggravated, contributed to, or caused by that radiation. The district office found that, at the time of your father’s death, you were incapable of self-support. For those reasons, the district office concluded that you, as his surviving child, are entitled to $125,000.00 under Part E.

On January 22, 2007, the FAB received written notification that you waive any and all objections to the recommended decision. After considering the recommended decision and all the evidence in the case file, the FAB hereby makes the following:

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. You filed a claim for benefits on March 13, 2003.

2. By final decision dated September 10, 2003, the FAB determined that your father was employed at a DOE facility and was entitled to compensation under Part B for an occupational illness, colon cancer, which was diagnosed after the beginning of that employment.

3. Your father died on November 26, 2002, due to metastatic mucinous adenocarcinoma which had originated in the colon.

4. You are a surviving child of [Employee], and were incapable of self-support at the time of his death.

Based on the above-noted findings of fact in this claim, the FAB hereby makes the following:

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

The term “covered child” means a child of the employee who, at the time of the employee’s death, was under the age of 18 years, or under the age of 23 years and a full-time student who was continuously enrolled in an educational institution since attaining the age of 18 years, or incapable of self-support. See 42 U.S.C. § 7385s-3(d)(2). You were 54 years old at the time of your father’s death. Based on information provided by SSA and DVA, you had not been paid wages for at least the period of 2000 to 2004 and you were found to be totally (100%) disabled due to PTSD and other disabling conditions since at least March 9, 1994 and continuing until the time of your father’s death on November 26, 2002.

Based on the final decision of September 10, 2003, I have determined that, as provided by 42 U.S.C. § 7385s-4(a), colon cancer (resulting in metastatic mucinous adenocarcinoma) was contracted by your father through exposure to a toxic substance at a DOE facility. The evidence of record establishes that his death was at least as likely as not aggravated, contributed to, or caused by that exposure. For those reasons, I conclude that, as his surviving child, you are entitled to $125,000.00 as provided by 42 U.S.C. § 7385s-3(a)(1).

Cleveland, OH

Tracy Smart, Hearing Representative

Final Adjudication Branch