You were hurt at work years ago. The treatment stopped, the checks stopped, the lawyer you had is no longer returning calls, and somewhere in the back of your mind is the settlement you were once offered and turned down. The question is whether there is still money owed to you, or whether that door closed while you were not looking.
The Honest Answer First
Sometimes it is too late. New York puts hard outside limits on how long a workers’ compensation claim can be revived, and once those limits pass there is no argument that brings the claim back. Anyone who tells you every old claim is worth pursuing is not being straight with you.
But the age of your injury is not what decides it, and that is where most people talk themselves out of a claim that was still alive. A twenty-year-old injury can be worth pursuing. A claim from four years ago can be finished. What matters is what happened to your claim and when money last changed hands — not how long ago you got hurt.
What Actually Decides It
The Workers’ Compensation Board keeps continuing jurisdiction over a case, which means it retains the power to revisit and change its own decisions. That power is broad, but it is not unlimited. Section 123 of the Workers’ Compensation Law sets two separate cut-offs, and they work differently from one another.
The seven-year bar
A claim that was disallowed after a trial on the merits, or otherwise disposed of without an award, generally cannot be reopened more than seven years after the date of the accident. If your claim was fought, lost, and closed out with nothing awarded, that is the clock that applies, and seven years is not long.
The eighteen-year and eight-year bar
For claims that were established and paid, the law bars an award where the application comes more than eighteen years after the injury and more than eight years after the last payment of compensation.
Read that twice, because the word doing the work is and. Both conditions have to be satisfied before the door shuts. An injury from 2004 is well past eighteen years, but if compensation was paid to you within the last eight, the second condition is not met and the bar has not fallen. That single conjunction is the reason so many people who assume they are out of time are not.
Which makes the date of your last payment the most important number in your case — more important than the date you were injured. It is also the number people are least likely to remember correctly. That date is a matter of record in your Board file, and it is worth establishing from the file rather than from memory before you conclude anything.
“Closed” Doesn’t Always Mean What You Think
People use the word closed to mean several different things, and the differences matter enormously here.
A claim that was disallowed — litigated and decided against you — is a different animal from a claim that was established, paid for a while, and then simply went quiet because you stopped treating and nobody filed anything further. The second situation is extremely common and is not the same as having lost.
A case marked with no further action is not a case that was decided against you. It is a case nobody has asked the Board to look at recently. Those are the claims most often written off by the people who own them.
What Reopening Actually Requires
Being inside the time limits gets you through the door. It does not by itself produce money. To reopen a dormant claim you generally need something to show the Board — most often current medical evidence that connects your present condition to the original work injury.
That is a real hurdle if you have not seen a doctor for the injury in a decade. It is not necessarily an impossible one: a lasting impairment from a serious injury does not stop existing because treatment stopped, and a current evaluation can speak to a condition that has been there the whole time. But this is the step where an old claim most often fails, and it is worth being clear-eyed about it.
On an accepted claim, an injured worker can ask the Board to take action using a Request for Assistance (Form RFA-1W), filed on paper or through the Board’s online system.
A claim that is moving is a different situation with its own deadlines. If yours is active and you have received a notice of proposed conciliation decision, that carries a 30-day window of its own.
The Award That Was Never Made
Here is the part people miss, and it is often where the money is.
A permanency award is separate from the weekly checks you received while you were out of work. It compensates the fact that you were left with a lasting impairment, and it comes in two forms depending on what you injured.
Schedule loss of use awards
Injuries to the extremities and certain senses — arm, leg, hand, foot, eye, thumb, fingers, toes, and hearing — fall under a statutory schedule. Each body member is assigned a fixed number of weeks of benefits, and your award is a percentage of that figure based on the degree of loss of use. An arm carries 312 weeks at full loss, a leg 288, a hand 244.
A schedule loss of use award is payable whether or not you went back to work, and whether or not you lost any wages at all. It is the closest thing in the system to the lump sum most people have in mind when they ask this question.
Non-schedule awards
The spine, back, neck, head and internal or systemic conditions are not on that schedule. Those claims are resolved by classification instead: the Board determines your loss of wage earning capacity, and benefits run on that basis for a maximum number of weeks that rises with the degree of loss.
This matters for back injuries in particular, because back claims are among the most common to go quiet — and a back injury is never resolved by a schedule award. If your claim was for your back and nobody ever classified you, the permanency question was never answered at all.
Why so many of these awards were never made
Neither award can happen until a doctor says you have reached maximum medical improvement — the point where your condition has stabilized and further treatment is not expected to change it — and files the Board’s report on it, Form C-4.3.
People stop treating for entirely understandable reasons. They get tired of appointments that do not seem to be fixing anything. They lose faith in the treatment being offered. They move, change jobs, or simply give up. And when treatment stops before the treating doctor ever completes a C-4.3, permanency is never assessed — no schedule loss of use, no classification, nothing.
That is a very different situation from an award that was made and paid out. It is an award that was never made at all, on an impairment you have been living with ever since. If that describes your case, the question is not whether you can get more money — it is whether the part of your claim that pays for permanent damage was ever reached.
Where the Lump Sum Comes In
The lump sum most people are thinking about is a Section 32 settlement — an agreement that resolves the claim for a negotiated amount, subject to Board approval.
The order of operations matters. A Section 32 settles a live claim. There is nothing to negotiate on a claim that is dormant and cannot be revived, which is why the reopening question comes first and the settlement question second. If a carrier once offered you a number and you turned it down, that offer is long gone — but the claim it was attached to may not be.
Understand also what a Section 32 does. It closes the claim out, and in many cases that includes future medical treatment for the injury. Turning one down years ago is not automatically the mistake it feels like in hindsight, and accepting one now is a decision to make with the full picture rather than out of frustration.
If You Can’t Reach the Lawyer You Had
This comes up constantly, and it worries people more than it should. Your claim is yours. It does not belong to the firm that handled it, and it does not disappear because that firm closed, moved, retired or stopped answering.
Your case exists in the Board’s records independently of any attorney. You can follow your own claim by registering for eCase on the Board’s website, and you are entitled to know what is in your file. You are also entitled to an attorney of your own choosing at any point in an open claim, without needing permission from the one you had — our guide to changing attorneys mid-case covers how that works.
What to Do Now
Find your case number. It appears on any Board correspondence you kept. If you have none, registering for eCase or contacting the Board can help you locate the claim.
Work out when you were last paid. Not treated — paid. The date of the last compensation payment to you is the figure that drives the eight-year half of the test, and it is in the file.
Find out what actually happened to the claim. Established and quiet is a different position from disallowed. Most people do not know which of the two describes their case.
Check whether permanency was ever decided. If no doctor ever filed a C-4.3 finding you at maximum medical improvement, no schedule loss of use award and no classification was ever made on your claim.
Ask before you assume. The cost of finding out is a phone call. The cost of assuming wrongly is the whole claim.
Frequently Asked Questions
My injury was more than 18 years ago. Is my claim dead?
Not necessarily. The eighteen-year limit only bars an award when it is combined with more than eight years since the last payment of compensation. Both have to be true. If you were paid within the last eight years, that bar has not closed.
I turned down a settlement offer years ago. Did I lose my chance?
You lost that offer. Whether you lost the claim is a separate question, and it depends on the status of the claim and the timing rules rather than on having said no.
I stopped treating years ago. Does that end it?
Not by itself, though it makes things harder. Reopening generally requires current medical evidence connecting your condition today to the original injury, and a long gap in treatment means that evidence has to be built rather than pulled off the shelf.
I was never given a permanency award. Is that normal?
It is common, and it is worth looking into. Permanency cannot be decided until a doctor finds you have reached maximum medical improvement and files Form C-4.3. If you stopped treating before that happened, no schedule loss of use award and no classification was ever made — the question was never reached rather than answered against you.
My injury was to my back. Do I get a schedule loss of use award?
No. The back, neck, spine, head and internal conditions are not on the statutory schedule. Those claims are resolved by classification based on loss of wage earning capacity instead. Schedule awards cover the extremities and certain senses — arm, leg, hand, foot, eye, fingers, toes and hearing.
What is the difference between a closed claim and a disallowed claim?
A disallowed claim was litigated and decided against the worker. A claim that simply stopped moving was never decided against anyone — nobody asked the Board to do anything further. They sit under different parts of the time-bar rules, which is why it matters which one you have.
Can I find out what happened to my old claim myself?
Yes. You can register for eCase on the Workers’ Compensation Board website to follow your own claim, and Board correspondence you still have will carry your case number.
Does it cost anything to have an old claim looked at?
No. Consultations are free and there is no fee unless you win. Telling you honestly that a claim is time-barred costs you nothing either.
Find Out Before You Write It Off
If you have an old workers’ compensation claim you assumed was finished, the questions worth answering are narrow and specific: was the claim established or disallowed, when were you last paid, and was permanency ever decided. Those facts settle most of it, and all of them are in a file you are entitled to see.
The Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr. represents injured workers in workers’ compensation claims throughout New York. Call 718.701.2776 (toll-free: 800.310.5520) or contact us for a free consultation. We will tell you plainly whether the claim is still live — including when the answer is no.
Attorney Advertising. This page is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Time limits in workers’ compensation cases depend on the specific history of the individual claim. No attorney-client relationship is formed by reading this page or submitting an inquiry.
