His parents, Jose Luis Payan and Isabel Villa, contend the 22-year-old was their sole source of financial support and, as a result, they are entitled to workers' compensation death benefits of roughly $2,400 per month.

Payan's employer, Murray Energy Corp. subsidiary Genwal Resources Inc., and its insurer, Rockwood Casualty Insurance Co., rejected the parents' claim. While acknowledging Payan supported his parents, the companies argue he must have had assistance from two siblings living in Huntington and that the parents are eligible for no more than $475 monthly.

Over the 312-week life of initial workers' compensation dependents benefits, that amounts to a difference of about $150,000 - the $187,000 the family is seeking compared with the $37,000 the companies believe is owed.

The dispute now is in the hands of Aurora Holley, a Utah Labor Commission administrative law judge, who presided Wednesday over a daylong hearing into the Payan parents' appeal of the companies' denial of the claim.

She said a ruling is two to three months away.

"There's not one single witness that the money going to Mexico came from somebody other than Juan Carlos Payan," said family attorney, Ed Havas. "There's not one documented source of funds from anyone else."

He was referring to depositions of Payan's parents and to testimony Wednesday from Payan's brother, Luis, who had worked on a different mining crew at Crandall Canyon until the disaster, and from his married sister, Miriam Castro, who let her younger brother live with her family in their mobile home in Huntington.

Havas also was dismissing the companies' analysis of a half dozen bank accounts of Payan family members, Western Union money transfers to Mexico and income tax records filed by the Payan siblings, contending nothing in those records showed money to support the parents coming from anyone but Juan Carlos.

Bret Gardner, an attorney for the companies, countered that someone as young as Payan could not have sent such large sums of money back to Mexico. Over several years, the three Payan siblings sent $268,000 to their parents. Almost $90,000 of that money is attributed to Juan Carlos Payan.

"Ask yourself if that really makes sense," Gardner asked the judge.

The Payans maintained some of that money was sent by Luis to buy a home and real estate for himself, not to support his parents. They also testified that Juan Carlos often handed his paycheck over to his sister, who then wired the money to Mexico.

Gardner challenged the honesty of the family members' sworn statements, describing them as "disingenuous testimony from the parents and siblings that every last dime came from the son [Juan Carlos]."

The hearing disclosed that Juan Carlos Payan followed Luis to the Coop mine, a few miles from Crandall Canyon, and started working when he was not quite 16. Both Payans moved to Crandall Canyon upon leaving Coop after a 2004 strike over poor pay and allegedly unsafe working conditions.

Juan Carlos was one of six miners entombed in Crandall Canyon when the mine's walls imploded Aug. 6, 2007.

mikeg@sltrib.com