§8102 Compensation for Disability or Death of Employee

Summary

The United States must pay benefits when an employee is hurt or killed by a personal injury while doing their job, unless the injury or death was caused by the employee’s intentional wrongdoing, by the employee trying to hurt or kill themself or someone else, or was mainly caused by the employee being intoxicated. If an employee working outside the continental United States, in Alaska, or in areas of Panama made available under the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 and related agreements (see section 3(a) of the Panama Canal Act of 1979) is injured or dies from a war-risk danger or from capture, detention, or restraint by a hostile force or person, that harm is treated as happening while on duty whether or not they were working when it occurred. This does not apply to someone who lives at or near the workplace and was not there only because of the job, unless they were hurt or taken while working, or to a prisoner of war or a person protected by the Geneva Conventions of 1949 who is detained or used by the United States.