LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — An eastern Kentucky miner with a history of whistleblowing activities should get his job back and a coal company should pay a $30,000 fine for dismissing him and for discriminatory practices, a judge has ruled.

Administrative Law Judge Margaret A. Miller concluded last week that Cumberland River Coal Company improperly fired 52-year-old Charles Scott Howard of Letcher County in May 2011 after he was injured on the job 10 months earlier. Miller concluded in the 12-page decision that Cumberland River Coal and its parent company, Arch Coal, went to great lengths to justify dismissing Howard after he alerted federal officials about his mine.