Your Lawyer’s Workers’ Compensation Lawyer. Other New York personal injury attorneys refer their clients’ workers’ compensation claims to this office.
If you were hurt on the job in Staten Island or Brooklyn, New York gives you a right to benefits without asking whose fault the accident was. That is the bargain at the center of the whole system, and most injured workers do not realize how much it covers. Fault is not the test. What you do have to show is that the injury arose out of and in the course of your employment.
What follows is what workers’ compensation actually pays, what your weekly check is based on, the deadlines that decide whether you have a case at all, and the points where these claims most often go wrong.
You do not have to prove anyone was at fault
New York workers’ compensation is a no-fault system. The law says benefits are payable without regard to fault as a cause of the injury. You do not have to show your employer did anything wrong, and your own carelessness does not disqualify you. Workers talk themselves out of valid claims over this more often than over anything else.
There are two narrow exceptions, and the wording of both matters. Benefits can be denied where the injury was solely occasioned by intoxication from alcohol or a controlled substance, or where the worker acted with the willful intention to injure himself or someone else. “Solely” is doing real work in that sentence: intoxication that contributed to an accident but did not cause it on its own is not a defense. The carrier carries that burden, and it is a heavy one — see why intoxication alone does not end a comp claim.
The law also presumes against both of those defenses. Once you show you were working, the Board presumes that the claim comes within the statute, that the injury did not result solely from intoxication, and that it was not willfully self-inflicted. The carrier has to come forward with substantial evidence to the contrary; you do not have to disprove it.
The trade-off is that, with narrow exceptions, workers’ compensation is your only remedy against your employer. You generally cannot sue the company you work for. You may well be able to sue somebody else — more on that below.
What workers’ compensation pays for
Medical care
Causally related, medically necessary treatment for the work injury, from a provider authorized by the Workers’ Compensation Board, at no cost to you. There is no copay. Most treatment has to fit the Board’s Medical Treatment Guidelines, and going outside them takes a variance request. You should not be paying your doctor or the hospital for treatment of a work-related injury, and you should not be handing them your own insurance card in an established claim.
In an established claim, that coverage is for life — with three conditions attached. The treatment has to be authorized, it has to be related to the work injury, and the claim has to stay open. Emergencies aside, treatment outside those lines is not covered. A settlement that closes out future medical ends it, which is one of the things to weigh before agreeing to one.
Lost wage benefits
Two-thirds of your average weekly wage, multiplied by your degree of disability as the medical evidence establishes it, subject to a maximum and a minimum. A worker found 50% disabled receives half of what a totally disabled worker at the same wage would. This is why the percentage in your doctor’s report is not a formality.
A schedule loss of use award
If you permanently lost some use of an arm, leg, hand, foot, finger, toe, eye or ear, the law pays a fixed number of weeks for that body part, multiplied by the percentage you lost. It is paid for the permanent loss itself, so it can be payable even if you returned to your old job at your old pay and lost no time at all. Temporary benefits already paid to you are deducted from the award. Our page on schedule loss of use awards explains how the number is built and where it goes wrong.
Where two separate accidents contributed to the same permanent condition, the Board divides responsibility between the claims. Our post on apportionment between two workers’ compensation claims explains how that works.
When the injured body part is not on the schedule
The back, neck and spine are not scheduled members. A permanent spinal injury is handled instead as a classification — benefits based on your loss of wage-earning capacity, capped at a number of weeks that rises with that loss. For accidents or dates of disablement on or after 13 March 2007, those benefits run for a maximum number of weeks rather than for life. Among the permanency classifications, only permanent total disability has no week limit. A worker classified above 75% loss of wage-earning capacity can also apply, in the year before the capped benefits run out, to be reclassified on extreme-hardship grounds. What happens at a permanency hearing is a separate subject worth reading before you attend one.
Death benefits
If a worker dies from a work injury or illness, the surviving spouse and minor children share benefits totalling two-thirds of the worker’s average weekly wage, subject to the same weekly maximum. Where there is no surviving spouse or child, other dependents may qualify. Funeral expenses are covered up to $12,500 in Richmond, Kings, Queens, New York, Bronx, Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester counties, and $10,500 elsewhere in the state. Where there are no dependents at all, a payment of $50,000 is due to the surviving parents or to the estate.
What your weekly check will actually be
Two-thirds of your average weekly wage, times your percentage of disability. That figure is then capped by the maximum weekly benefit rate, and floored by the minimum.
The cap and the floor are fixed by your date of accident — or, in an occupational disease case, your date of disablement — and they do not change afterwards. This is the part that surprises people. For accidents on or after 1 July 2026 and before 1 July 2027, the maximum weekly benefit is $1,281.50. For accidents in the year before that, it is $1,222.42 — and a worker injured in that year is still held to that figure. The rate does not rise when the state adopts a new one.
The minimum works differently now. It used to be a flat dollar figure set by the legislature; as of 1 July 2026 it is one-fifth of the New York State average weekly wage, recalculated every year, which puts it at $384.45. If your actual wages were lower than that, you receive your wages rather than the minimum.
There is also a waiting period, and it is commonly described wrongly. No compensation is payable for the first seven days of disability. But if the disability lasts more than fourteen days, compensation is payable from the first day — those first seven days come back to you. Both counts run from the date of disability, not the date of the accident. How long benefits continue after that depends on your classification.
The deadlines that decide whether you have a case
Two deadlines matter more than all the others, and both are shorter than people expect.
- Notice to your employer: 30 days from the accident, in writing. In a death case, 30 days from the death.
- Filing your claim with the Board: two years from the accident, or two years from the death in a death case. For an occupational disease, two years from disablement and from when you knew or should have known the condition came from your work — whichever is later, which is often years after the exposure itself.
Missing one is serious but not always fatal. The Board can excuse a late notice where the employer already knew about the accident, where notice could not reasonably have been given, or where the employer was not prejudiced by the delay. And a claim is not barred by the two-year rule where the employer or carrier has already made advance payments of compensation. If you are outside a deadline, that is a reason to ask a lawyer quickly rather than a reason to give up. The deadlines are set out in more detail in our post on filing deadlines.
When you can sue as well as claim
With narrow exceptions — the most important being an employer that failed to carry coverage at all — workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy against your employer. It is not a remedy against anyone else. If a third party — a property owner, a general contractor, a driver, the manufacturer of a defective machine — caused your injury, you can bring a claim against that party and receive compensation benefits at the same time.
Three things to know before you do. First, the compensation carrier has a lien on whatever you recover, up to what it has paid out, after deduction of the reasonable and necessary costs of the recovery including legal fees — costs the courts apportion between you and the carrier — and it also takes a credit against your future compensation out of what is left. Second, if you have taken a compensation award, the third-party action generally has to be started within six months of it or the cause of action is treated as assigned to the carrier, though that only happens where the carrier served you with written notice at least thirty days before the deadline. The personal injury statute of limitations runs separately and is usually the shorter clock in practice. Third, you cannot settle the third-party case for less than the compensation you are owed without the carrier’s written consent, or a compromise order from a justice of the court where that action was pending. Courts have held that settling without either can forfeit your future compensation benefits, and relief afterwards is discretionary — so it has to be handled before the settlement, not after. Our post on third-party settlements and the comp lien covers how the two cases interact, and our guide to resolving both cases together in a global settlement walks through the order the pieces have to close in.
Construction workers have more room here than most. New York’s Labor Law gives workers rights against owners and general contractors that sit alongside the comp claim — section 240(1) for elevation-related risks such as falls and falling objects, during the erection, demolition, repair, alteration, painting, cleaning or pointing of a building or structure rather than during routine maintenance; section 241(6) where a specific Industrial Code rule was violated; and section 200 where the owner or contractor controlled the work or knew of the hazard. There are real limits, including an exception for owners of one- and two-family homes who do not direct or control the work — which matters a good deal on Staten Island. These claims are worth evaluating early. Our construction accidents pages go through the common scenarios.
Warehouse and fulfillment work is now the fastest-growing kind of work on Staten Island, and it produces a particular kind of claim — the one that builds up rather than happens. Since June 2025 New York has required large warehouses to assess and write down the ergonomic risks in each job, which changes what can be proved. Our page on warehouse and fulfillment center injuries explains how.
Who has to carry coverage
Virtually every employer in New York State must carry workers’ compensation for its employees. You cannot be charged for that coverage or made to contribute to its cost, and you cannot be required to buy your own policy. An agreement by an employee to pay any part of the premium is void, and an employer that makes such a deduction commits a misdemeanor. If you see it coming out of your pay, something is wrong.
A handful of situations are genuinely exempt — a sole proprietor with no employees, a partnership or LLC with no employees, a corporation owned entirely by one or two people who hold all of its stock and all of its offices, uncompensated volunteers for a nonprofit. Those are exemptions for owners and principals. None of them lets a business leave its actual employees uncovered.
If it turns out your employer had no coverage at all, do not assume the claim is over. That situation has its own process, and it is worth asking about promptly.
What to do after a work injury
- Report it to your employer in writing, and keep a copy. A verbal mention to a supervisor is what late-notice defenses are built on.
- Get treated, and tell the provider plainly that the injury happened at work. Use a provider authorized by the Board.
- Keep everything — every form, every letter from the insurance carrier, every medical report and bill.
- Be careful about what you sign. Forms that arrive from an insurance carrier are not neutral paperwork.
- Do not stop treating because the case is disputed. Gaps in care hurt your recovery first and your claim second.
Where these cases go wrong
Treating the independent medical exam as a formality
The carrier’s doctor examines you once, briefly, and writes a report that carries real weight on the degree of your disability and on any permanency finding. Going into it without understanding what it is for is a mistake that is hard to undo later. Our page on independent medical exams sets out what you are entitled to at one.
Assuming a denial is the end
It is not. A controverted claim goes to a Workers’ Compensation Law Judge, not to an adjuster, and carriers have deadlines of their own that they sometimes miss. What to do when your claim is denied is a subject in itself.
Settling before anyone knows what the case is worth
A Section 32 settlement ends the case for a negotiated sum, and once approved it is generally final. There are good reasons to take one. Doing it before permanency is assessed is rarely one of them.
Staying with representation that has stopped moving the file
Cases stall. Sometimes there is a sound strategic reason and sometimes there is not, and you are entitled to ask. Changing attorneys mid-case is permitted in New York. Fees still have to be approved by the Board, which apportions a single fee between the outgoing and incoming attorney out of your award rather than charging you twice over.
Questions we are asked most
The accident was my own fault. Can I still claim?
Yes. Fault is not part of the test. Unless the injury was solely caused by intoxication or was deliberately self-inflicted, your own carelessness does not bar the claim — and the law presumes it was neither.
I went back to work. Is my case over?
No. Returning to work ends your lost-wage benefits, but it does not affect your right to a schedule loss of use award for permanent loss of function, and it does not close your medical coverage.
How long do benefits last?
It depends on how the case is classified. A schedule award is a fixed number of weeks. A classification for a non-scheduled injury is capped in weeks according to your loss of wage-earning capacity. Permanent total disability has no week limit. Medical coverage for the injury is separate from all of that.
My employer says I was an independent contractor.
That is a common basis for a denial, and it is not your employer’s call to make. Whether you were an employee is decided by the Board on the facts of how you actually worked, not on what your pay was labelled.
Do I need a lawyer for a workers’ comp claim?
Not for every claim. A straightforward accepted claim with a short recovery may not need one. A denied claim, a disputed degree of disability, a permanency finding, a settlement offer or an employer disputing that you worked there — those are the points where it is worth having someone look at the file. Consultations here are free. In a workers’ compensation case you do not pay anything up front: a fee has to be applied for and approved by the Workers’ Compensation Board, which sets it out of your award based on the work done and your circumstances.
More on workers’ compensation
- Delivery workers hit on the job — app riders on bikes, e-bikes and mopeds, and the three places the money can come from.
- Hurt at work? What to do first — the short version, for the day it happens.
- What to bring to your first meeting with a comp attorney — the documents that move a claim along.
- Work accident lawyers in Staten Island and Brooklyn — what to look for, and what the phrase actually means.
- Choosing the right Staten Island workers’ comp attorney — the questions worth asking before you retain anyone.
- Carpal tunnel and occupational disease claims — why the 30-day notice rule does not apply, and where these claims are actually fought.
- Nurses, aides and nursing home staff — patient handling injuries, assaults by residents, and why a back injury is not a schedule award.
- Injured at work outside Staten Island — why a Manhattan job site, or one in another state, does not mean you need a firm over there.
- City of New York employees — who the City’s self-insured program covers, and why an agency injury report is not a filed claim.
- Fresh Kills and 9/11 responders — the landfill is named in the statute, and the deadline to register your service now runs to 2030.
- How your average weekly wage is set — the number every check is calculated from, and how to fix it if it is too low.
- Labor market attachment — why benefits stop when nobody told you to look for work, and what the Board wants to see.
- Classification and loss of wage-earning capacity — how a permanent partial disability is turned into a percentage and a number of weeks.
- Undocumented workers — you are covered, and what immigration status does and does not change.
- Third-party cases and the compensation lien — when one accident produces two cases, and why you cannot settle the lawsuit on your own.
- Working while collecting benefits — what the law actually penalizes, and how claimants lose cases they would have won.
- The two-year deadline to file — how long you have, and the exceptions that can save a late claim.
- How to show attachment to the labor market — what to do, and what to document, when a judge directs you to look for work.
Talk to a Staten Island workers’ compensation attorney
Frank J. Dito, Jr. has represented injured workers in Staten Island and Brooklyn for years, in workers’ compensation and in the third-party cases that often run alongside it. If you are not sure whether you have a claim, that is exactly the question a free consultation is for. You can also read what past clients have said about working with this firm.
More answers are collected in our workers’ compensation FAQs. If your injury involved your head or your back and neck, we have pages on both.
Call 718.701.2776 or 800.310.5520
1610 Richmond Road #200, Staten Island, NY 10304
Last reviewed September 2026. New York benefit rates change each 1 July.
Attorney Advertising. The information on this page is general and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
We wrote the book on New York workers’ comp.
That is not a figure of speech. The New York Workers’ Compensation Book runs fifty-eight pages on what actually happens after you are hurt at work in New York, and on the places a claim quietly comes apart. It follows a claim from the accident through to settlement, organized around the questions people actually ask. It downloads immediately from our free guides page and asks you for nothing first.