Ingalls Hearing Loss Longshore Claim

The TV lawyer on the billboard has never filed a noise-induced hearing loss claim under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. He does not know it is compensable. He does not know the schedule assigns 200 weeks of compensation for bilateral hearing loss. He does not know the discovery rule that determines when the two-year clock starts running for an Ingalls welder who spent thirty years surrounded by grinding, blasting, and heavy equipment. When an Ingalls worker with significant hearing loss calls that 1-800 number and describes what happened to his hearing, the TV lawyer has no idea there is a federal claim sitting right in front of him. That ignorance costs that worker tens of thousands of dollars he earned by showing up every day to one of the loudest industrial environments in Mississippi.

Why Ingalls Shipyard Noise Produces Compensable Hearing Loss Under The LHWCA

Huntington Ingalls Industries operates one of the noisiest industrial environments in the United States. Steel grinding. Plasma cutting. Blasting operations on vessel hulls. Heavy equipment moving through confined drydock spaces. Hydraulic tools. Impact wrenches. Workers in the production areas at Ingalls are exposed to noise levels that routinely exceed OSHA’s permissible exposure limits. A welder, pipefitter, or rigger who spends a career in those spaces will develop measurable, permanent hearing loss. That is not speculation. It is an established occupational medicine finding documented in decades of Ingalls worker health records.

Under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, occupational hearing loss is a compensable condition. The schedule at 33 U.S.C. Section 908(c)(13) assigns 200 weeks of compensation for total bilateral hearing loss and 52 weeks for total loss of hearing in one ear. For partial hearing loss, the compensation is a percentage of the schedule value proportional to the degree of impairment documented by audiological testing. A worker with 40 percent bilateral hearing loss is entitled to 40 percent of 200 weeks at two-thirds of his average weekly wage. For an Ingalls tradesperson earning strong shipyard wages, that is a substantial sum — and it is a sum the carrier will fight to minimize at every step.

The hearing loss claim does not require a single traumatic noise event. It does not require a specific date when the hearing was damaged. The injury is the cumulative result of years of occupational noise exposure. The Pascagoula longshore claim deadline for a hearing loss claim runs from the date the worker knew or reasonably should have known the hearing loss was related to his employment — typically the date an audiologist identified a noise-induced pattern and connected it to the work environment. Many Ingalls workers with real claims believe their deadline has passed because they have been living with hearing loss for years. That analysis is often wrong. The question is not when the hearing first deteriorated. It is when the worker knew or should have known the cause.

How The Carrier Fights An Ingalls Hearing Loss Claim

The carrier’s defense in a hearing loss claim follows a predictable pattern. They will argue that the hearing loss is age-related presbycusis rather than noise-induced hearing loss. They will find an audiologist or otolaryngologist who will testify that the audiogram pattern is consistent with natural aging rather than industrial noise exposure. They will raise any history of recreational noise exposure — hunting, concerts, power tools at home — as alternative causation. They will argue that the employer provided adequate hearing protection and that if the worker had used it properly, the hearing loss would not have occurred.

Every one of those arguments has a counter. Noise-induced hearing loss has a characteristic audiometric signature — a notch at 4,000 Hz — that is distinct from the pattern of age-related hearing loss. An audiologist who treats occupational hearing loss patients knows how to document and explain that distinction. The adequacy of Ingalls’s hearing conservation program over the decades the worker was employed is a factual question that can be developed through the worker’s own testimony and the facility’s OSHA compliance records. These are not easy arguments to make, but they are arguments a Pascagoula longshore lawyer who has litigated hearing loss claims knows how to make.

The TV lawyer does not know any of this. He does not know the 4,000 Hz notch. He does not know the audiometric methodology used to separate noise-induced loss from presbycusis. He does not know the OSHA noise exposure standards that Ingalls was required to meet and may have failed to meet over a worker’s career. He will tell you the case is too complicated and suggest you move on. That is not legal advice. That is ignorance dressed up as counsel.

How Hearing Loss Interacts With Other Ingalls Longshore Claims

An Ingalls welder or pipefitter who develops both occupational hearing loss and a spinal condition from years of working in confined spaces has two separate compensable claims running simultaneously. The hearing loss is a scheduled condition worth 200 weeks under 33 U.S.C. Section 908(c)(13). The spinal condition is an unscheduled injury compensated under Section 908(c)(21) based on wage-earning capacity loss. Both claims can be pursued together. The carrier will use each one against the other — arguing that the combined burden of proof is too high and that the worker should accept a global settlement that undervalues both conditions.

The Ingalls repetitive injury longshore claim page explains how the cumulative trauma framework operates for spinal and musculoskeletal conditions. Hearing loss follows the same framework — cumulative occupational exposure, discovery rule for the statute of limitations, carrier-retained expert fighting the impairment rating down — but the medical specialty and the audiometric evidence are completely different from the orthopedic evidence in a musculoskeletal claim. Building both claims correctly, simultaneously, requires a lawyer who has been through both types of cases in the federal system.

The disability schedule values for hearing loss, along with every other scheduled condition under the Act, are laid out on the Mississippi longshore permanent disability schedule page. Understanding what 200 weeks at two-thirds of your average weekly wage actually means in dollars — and how the carrier’s strategy of minimizing the audiometric impairment rating reduces that number — is the first step in knowing whether you are being lowballed.

What Ingalls Workers With Hearing Loss Need To Do Now

Get an audiological evaluation from an audiologist who handles occupational hearing loss cases. Not the company audiologist who conducts annual compliance screenings. An independent audiologist who can document the pattern of your hearing loss, characterize it as noise-induced versus age-related, and connect the occupational history at Ingalls to the findings. That evaluation is the foundation of your claim. Without it, you have symptoms but no documentation.

Do not give the insurance adjuster a recorded statement before you have a lawyer. The adjuster will call you. He will tell you the statement is routine, that it helps document your claim, that cooperation speeds up the process. Every word in that framing is designed to get you to say something that will be used against you. The questions about recreational noise exposure, about whether you wore your hearing protection every day, about whether your father had hearing problems — all of those are building the carrier’s case against you before you have anyone building yours.

Most Ingalls workers with significant occupational hearing loss have never filed a claim. They assumed it was just part of the job. They did not know the LHWCA compensates it. They did not know there is a schedule value. They did not know the statute of limitations runs from when they knew the cause, not when the hearing first deteriorated. If you have worked at Ingalls for years and your hearing is not what it was, the question of whether you have a compensable longshore claim is worth answering before the deadline passes. Get the free book at the bottom of this page before you call anyone — it covers the carrier’s playbook and the mistakes that permanently damage claims before a lawyer ever gets involved.

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