§909 Compensation for death

Summary

When a work injury causes death, money must be paid as a death benefit to certain people. The law pays reasonable funeral costs up to $3,000 and then monthly payments to family members in this order: a surviving spouse gets 50% of the worker’s average wages while widowed (and if the spouse remarries they get two years’ pay all at once). If there are children, add 16 2/3% of wages for each child to the amounts above. If the spouse dies or remarries, one surviving child gets 50% or multiple children share 50% plus 16 2/3% for each child beyond one. In all cases total payments can never be more than 66 2/3% of the worker’s wages. The deputy commissioner can require a guardian to receive money for a minor child, but otherwise a guardian is not needed. If there is no spouse or child, other dependents who relied on the worker may get help: grandchildren, brothers or sisters and similar dependents get 20% each, and a dependent parent or grandparent gets 25% each, but those payments can’t exceed the difference between 66 2/3% and what the spouse/children already get. Wages used to compute benefits can’t be less than the national average weekly wage in section 906(b), and weekly benefits cannot exceed the lesser of the worker’s average weekly wages or the amount from section 906(b)(1). For deaths from an occupational disease that count as happening after retirement, weekly pay is limited to one fifty-second (1/52) of the worker’s average annual earnings in the 52 weeks before retirement. Dependency is decided as of the time of the injury. Nonresident aliens get the same amounts, but foreign dependents are limited to a surviving spouse and children or, if none, a parent supported for one year before the injury. The Secretary may, or must on request from the insurer, commute future payments by paying one-half of the commuted amount as the Secretary decides.