§8102 Compensation for Disability or Death of Employee

Summary

The United States must pay money to cover an employee’s disability or death when the injury happened while doing their job. Payments do not have to be made if the injury or death was caused by the employee’s deliberate bad conduct, by the employee trying to hurt themselves or someone else, or if the employee’s intoxication was a main cause. If an employee working outside the continental United States, or in Alaska, or in areas of Panama made available to the United States under the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 and the Panama Canal Act of 1979 becomes disabled or dies from a war-related risk or from capture or detention by a hostile force, that is treated as a job injury. This rule does not apply to someone who lived at the work site by choice and was not there only because of the job (unless injured while working), or to a prisoner of war or a person protected under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 who is detained or used by the United States. Other payment rules still apply, and no compensation is paid for any time when the person or their dependents already receive pay, benefits, or gratuities from the United States for the same detention or injury unless those amounts are returned or given up.