Your Rights as an Injured Longshoreman Worker

A scheduled award is for injuries to certain body parts, for example the feet, the hands, the arms, the legs or the eyes.

If you have an injury only to one of those affected areas, you are entitled to receive temporary total or temporary partial disability benefits up until the point you reach medical stability called maximum medical improvement.

Upon that date, Section 8(c)of the Longshore Act provides that you are then entitled to a certain number of weeks of benefits based upon the body part injured and in accordance with the chart below.

• Arm lost, three hundred and twelve weeks’ compensation.
• Leg lost, two hundred and eighty-eight weeks’ compensation.
• Hand lost, two hundred and forty-four weeks’ compensation.
• Foot lost, two hundred and five weeks’ compensation.
• Eye lost, one hundred and sixty weeks’ compensation.
• Thumb lost, seventy-five weeks’ compensation.
• First finger lost, forty-six weeks’ compensation.
• Great toe lost, thirty-eight weeks’ compensation.
• Second finger lost, thirty weeks’ compensation.
• Third finger lost, twenty-five weeks’ compensation.
• Toe other than great toe lost, sixteen weeks’ compensation.
• Fourth finger lost, fifteen weeks’ compensation.
• Loss of hearing:
  • Compensation for loss of hearing in one ear, fifty-two weeks.
  • Compensation for loss of hearing in both ears, two-hundred weeks.

A body as a whole injury is different from a scheduled injury because you are not limited to a certain number of weeks for your injuries.

A body as a whole injury is an injury to the head, neck, back, shoulders, hips and psychological injuries and injuries to the heart and lungs.

When you have a body as a whole injury, you are entitled to receive compensation for so long as the injury prevents you from returning to work and or results in a loss of wage earning capacity.

A body as a whole injury can pay you compensation for the rest of your life. Ordinarily, a body as a whole injury is much more valuable than a scheduled award injury.

If you have further questions about the difference between a scheduled award benefit and a body as a whole injury, we have the answers.

At the Law Offices of Gillis, Mermell & Pacheco, P.A., our lawyers have over 60 years of combined experience helping Longshoremen who are injured at the Port of New York and the Port of New Jersey. We are qualified to answer any question you might have about your Longshore case.