Gulfport Longshore Permanent Disability Schedule

The TV lawyer has never explained the permanent disability schedule to a Halter Marine worker or a Port of Gulfport longshore worker. He has never sat across from a federal Administrative Law Judge and argued what a shoulder injury, a back injury, or a hearing loss from years in a Gulfport shipyard is actually worth under 33 U.S.C. Section 908. He does not know the schedule. He does not know how the impairment rating process works in the federal LHWCA system. And when the insurance carrier sends your injured Halter Marine worker a settlement figure based on a minimized disability rating, the TV lawyer accepts it because he has no idea what the gulfport longshore permanent disability schedule says your injury is actually worth. I do. And so will you after you read this page.

What The Gulfport Longshore Permanent Disability Schedule Means For Halter Marine And Port Of Gulfport Workers

The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act contains a permanent partial disability schedule at 33 U.S.C. Section 908(c). Every body part covered by the schedule has a specific number of weeks of compensation assigned to it by Congress. When a Gulfport longshore worker suffers a permanent impairment to a scheduled body part, the compensation is calculated as a percentage of that schedule value multiplied by two-thirds of the worker’s average weekly wage.

The schedule values are: arm, 312 weeks; leg, 288 weeks; hand, 244 weeks; foot, 205 weeks; eye, 160 weeks; thumb, 75 weeks; first finger, 46 weeks; great toe, 38 weeks; second finger, 30 weeks; third finger, 25 weeks; toe other than great toe, 16 weeks; fourth finger, 15 weeks. Hearing loss in both ears is 200 weeks. Hearing loss in one ear is 52 weeks.

For injuries not in the schedule — including the back and spine injuries that are extremely common among Halter Marine production workers who spend careers in physically demanding positions in confined spaces — the LHWCA provides for unscheduled permanent partial disability under Section 908(c)(21). That benefit is calculated based on actual wage-earning capacity loss rather than a fixed schedule value. Both types of permanent disability are fought hard by the carrier. The fight looks different but the goal is identical: pay you as little as possible.

For a Halter Marine worker or Port of Gulfport worker earning $1,500 per week who suffers a permanent 30 percent arm impairment, the schedule produces roughly 94 weeks of compensation at $1,000 per week — $94,000.00 for a single body part. The carrier’s entire strategy is to get that impairment rating to 20 percent or lower. The swing between a 20 percent and 30 percent rating is worth $30,000 to $40,000 in your pocket versus theirs.

How Gulfport Carriers Fight The Disability Rating

The carriers handling Halter Marine and Port of Gulfport claims have been processing LHWCA permanent disability cases in the New Orleans district for decades. They retain independent medical examiners whose ratings on carrier cases consistently come in below the ratings assigned by treating physicians. Those examiners use the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment and make every judgment call in the direction that produces the lowest defensible rating.

The AMA Guides contain ranges, options, and judgment calls at every level of the rating process. The difference between a physician who makes those calls in the carrier’s direction and a physician who documents the full extent of impairment is often 10 to 20 percentage points on the same injured worker. On a scheduled body part at Halter Marine wages, that difference is tens of thousands of dollars.

Winning the impairment rating fight requires knowing the carrier’s preferred examiners in the New Orleans district, knowing their history on the stand, and knowing which cross-examination questions expose the gap between their carrier-case ratings and their published academic positions. That knowledge comes from having been in that federal hearing room. The TV lawyer who has never tried one of these cases does not have it. I do.

Unscheduled Back Injuries At Halter Marine And The Port Of Gulfport

Back injuries are not on the LHWCA schedule. They are compensated under Section 908(c)(21) based on wage-earning capacity loss. For a Halter Marine welder or Port of Gulfport cargo handler who can no longer perform the physical demands of his career work, the carrier’s approach is to hire a vocational expert who identifies light-duty jobs in the national economy the worker could theoretically perform. Those jobs set the post-injury wage-earning capacity. The lower the wage those jobs pay, the smaller the weekly benefit.

The carrier’s vocational expert always finds jobs. His job is to find them. Countering his testimony requires your own vocational expert, a medical record that documents specific physical restrictions in terms that translate directly into occupational limitations, and a lawyer who has cross-examined the carrier’s vocational expert in a federal LHWCA hearing before. The TV lawyer has not. For the statewide framework that applies to all MS longshore workers on this issue, the Mississippi longshore permanent disability schedule page covers it in full detail.

Hearing Loss At Halter Marine And The Port Of Gulfport: The Most Undercompensated Scheduled Disability

Both Halter Marine and the Port of Gulfport produce noise environments that exceed safe daily exposure limits. The LHWCA schedule assigns 200 weeks for bilateral hearing loss and 52 weeks for unilateral loss. For a worker earning $1,500 per week, bilateral hearing loss is worth up to $200,000.00 in scheduled compensation depending on the severity of the impairment. Most Gulfport longshore workers with significant occupational hearing loss never file a claim. They do not know it is compensable. The carrier is not going to tell them. Before you give the adjuster a recorded statement about anything, get the free book below first. And for the full disability framework that applies to all Gulfport longshore injuries, the Gulfport longshore lawyer page covers the complete picture.

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