Washington DC Workers’ Compensation: Benefits, Filing, and Disputes

If you are hurt on the job in the District, Washington DC workers’ compensation pays your medical bills and roughly two-thirds of your wages while you cannot work, without you having to prove your employer did anything wrong. The system runs under D.C. Code Chapter 15 of Title 32 and covers almost every private-sector and municipal employee in the District.¹²³⁴

What the Benefits Cover

Medical Care

All reasonable and necessary treatment tied to the work injury is covered: doctor visits, surgery, prescriptions, physical therapy, hospital stays. You get to choose your own treating physician. If your injury is so severe you cannot make the choice yourself, the employer picks a doctor to start, and the Department of Employment Services oversees the care from there and can order a change of physician if needed.⁵

Watch one trap. If you unreasonably refuse treatment, a surgical procedure, or an exam the employer requests, DOES can suspend every benefit you are receiving, including wage checks, until you comply.⁵ A real concern about a risky operation is one thing; skipping routine follow-up is another.

Wage Replacement

Wage benefits are 66 2/3% of your average weekly wage, subject to the yearly maximum and minimum. There are four categories:

Temporary total disability pays two-thirds of your average weekly wage while you cannot work at all.⁶
Temporary partial disability covers you when you return to lighter work at reduced pay, paying two-thirds of the wage difference for up to five years.
Permanent total disability is paid for life at two-thirds of your average weekly wage. It applies when you can no longer earn wages at all, or when you have lost both hands, both arms, both feet, both legs, both eyes, or any two of those.
Permanent partial disability covers a lasting impairment to a specific body part and pays for a set number of weeks based on the body part affected.

Vocational rehabilitation is also available when an injury keeps you from going back to your old line of work.

The Three-Day Waiting Period

No wage benefits are paid for the first three days you are off. If your disability lasts more than 14 days, the first three days are then paid retroactively.⁷ Medical coverage starts from day one regardless.

Death Benefits

If a work injury or occupational disease kills a worker, surviving dependents receive ongoing payments. A surviving spouse or domestic partner with no dependent children gets 50% of the deceased worker’s average weekly wage until remarriage or a new domestic partnership, at which point the spouse receives a lump-sum payment equal to two years of benefits. With children in the picture, the spouse still gets 50% plus 16 2/3% per child, capped at 66 2/3% of the worker’s wage. Children with no surviving spouse receive 50% for one child, with 16 2/3% added for each additional child under the same cap. Funeral expenses are covered up to $5,000.⁸

Permanent Partial Disability: The Scheduled Weeks

For permanent injuries to specific body parts, the statute lays out a set number of weeks of two-thirds wage payments. For any injury on or after April 16, 1999, the scheduled weeks are reduced by 25%, rounded up to the next whole week.⁶ The base weeks before that reduction include:

Arm: 312 weeks
Leg: 288 weeks
Hand: 244 weeks
Foot: 205 weeks
Eye: 160 weeks
Hearing in one ear: 52 weeks; both ears: 200 weeks
Thumb: 75 weeks

Partial loss of a finger or toe is prorated, and partial loss of use of a body part is compensated proportionally. Amputation at or above the elbow or knee counts the same as losing the whole arm or leg; amputation between the elbow and wrist, or knee and ankle, counts as loss of the hand or foot.⁶

How to File Your Claim

Step One: Written Notice Within 30 Days

Give written notice of the injury to your employer and to the Office of Workers’ Compensation within 30 days of the accident, or within 30 days of when you realized the injury was work-related. The notice should include your name, your address, and when, where, and how the injury happened. Use DCWC Form 7, “Employee’s Notice of Accidental Injury or Occupational Disease,” available from your employer or the DOES website.⁹

Missing the 30 days is not automatically fatal. The claim can still proceed if the employer already knew about the injury and was not prejudiced by the late notice, or if DOES finds the delay was justified.³ Do not rely on that. File on time.

Step Two: Formal Claim Within One Year

After notice, submit the formal claim on DCWC Form 7A (“Employee’s Claim Application”) within one year of the injury, or within one year of the last benefit payment, whichever is later.⁴ This one is firm. Miss it and the right to benefits is gone.¹⁰

Forms can be mailed to the OWC office or submitted through the DOES portal. Pull together medical records from every provider who has treated you, pay stubs or tax records showing your pre-injury earnings, and contact information for any witnesses. The wage documentation matters especially because it sets your average weekly wage, and every benefit figure flows from that number.

If the Insurer Disputes Your Claim

The employer or insurer can accept the claim and start paying, or dispute it by filing a notice of controversion. Disputes first go to an informal conference at the OWC, where a claims examiner meets with both sides to try to narrow the issues. No testimony under oath; the point is resolution.

If that does not settle things, you can request a formal hearing by filing an Application for Formal Hearing (Form 20) with the Administrative Hearings Division. An Administrative Law Judge takes sworn testimony, reviews the evidence, and issues a Compensation Order spelling out what you are owed. Medical records and wage documentation carry the case at this stage.

When You Can Also Sue a Third Party

You cannot sue your employer in court for a work injury; workers’ comp is the exclusive remedy against them. You can, however, sue someone else who contributed to your injury, such as a negligent driver, the manufacturer of defective equipment, or the owner of the building where it happened, while still collecting workers’ comp benefits.¹¹

The timing is strict. Once a compensation order is filed, you have six months to bring the third-party lawsuit. Miss that, and the right to sue automatically transfers to your employer or insurance carrier. If they do not file within 90 days, the right returns to you, but only if the general three-year D.C. tort statute of limitations has not run.¹¹

Be aware of subrogation. The employer or insurer can claim reimbursement out of your lawsuit recovery for benefits they already paid you. Litigation costs and attorney fees are divided proportionally between you and the employer or insurer based on what each side recovers.¹¹

Attorney Fees

In many comp cases, the employer or insurer ends up paying your attorney’s fees directly. If the employer refuses to pay benefits within 30 days of receiving notice of your claim and your lawyer successfully prosecutes it, a reasonable fee is awarded against the employer on top of your compensation. If the employer has been paying something but disputes the amount, and the final award exceeds what they offered, the employer pays a fee based on the difference between tender and award.¹² All fees must be approved by DOES or the court before they can be collected.

If You Are Fired for Filing

Firing or disciplining a worker for filing a comp claim, attempting to file one, or testifying in a comp proceeding is illegal in the District. The employer faces a civil penalty of $100 to $1,000 per violation. A worker who is fired or discriminated against is entitled to be restored to the job and compensated for all wages lost because of the retaliation. The one exception: no restoration if the worker is no longer qualified to perform the job. The employer, not the insurance carrier, is solely on the hook; any policy clause trying to push this cost onto the carrier is void.¹³

Who Is Not Covered

D.C.’s system covers nearly every employee working under a contract of hire or apprenticeship in the District, including minors, and the injury does not have to occur inside D.C. borders as long as the employment is principally localized here.¹⁴ Several groups fall outside it:

Federal employees, who are covered under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act instead.¹⁵
Casual workers performing work outside the employer’s usual course of business.
Most household domestic workers, unless the household used domestic help for at least 240 hours in a calendar quarter during the current or prior year.¹⁶
Licensed real estate salespeople or brokers working under a written independent contractor agreement whose income is substantially all commissions.
Railroad employees in interstate commerce, covered under separate federal law.

Taxes on Your Benefits

Workers’ compensation paid for a work injury or occupational illness is fully exempt from federal income tax under IRS Publication 525, and that exemption extends to survivor benefits. Two situations complicate it. Light-duty wages are taxable because they are regular salary, not comp. And if your comp payments reduce your Social Security benefits, the offsetting portion can become taxable as Social Security income.¹⁷

1
U.S. Department of Labor. District of Columbia Workmens Compensation Act
2
District of Columbia Department of Employment Services. Maximum-Minimum Compensation Rate 2026
3
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1513 – Notice of Injury or Death
4
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1514 – Time for Filing Claims
5
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1507 – Medical Services, Supplies, and Insurance
6
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1508 – Compensation for Disability
7
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1505 – Commencement of Compensation; Maximum Compensation
8
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1509 – Compensation for Death
9
District of Columbia Department of Employment Services. Employees Notice of Accidental Injury or Occupational Disease – Form 7
10
Department of Employment Services. District of Columbia Workers Compensation Employees Rights and Obligations
11
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1535 – Compensation for Injuries Where Third Persons Are Liable
12
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1530 – Attorney Fees
13
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1542 – Retaliatory Actions by Employer Prohibited
14
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-1501 – Definitions
15
U.S. Department of Labor. Federal Employees Compensation Act
16
FindLaw. District of Columbia Code 32-1501 – Definitions
17
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 525 – Taxable and Nontaxable Income