BOSTON (AP) — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren once did legal work for a company that was fighting a federal mandate to pay additional money into a health care fund for retired coal miners.

Published reports Tuesday said Warren was paid about $10,000 in the 1990s to work on a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of LTV Steel, which was emerging from bankruptcy.

The 1992 federal Coal Act required companies to pay into a fund for long-term health care of retired miners and their families.

Alethea Harney, a spokeswoman for Warren’s campaign, said the case involved bankruptcy principles and there was never any question miners would receive full benefits.

But Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown Tuesday accused Warren of hypocrisy for campaigning in support of unions when she’s represented big corporations in the past.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.