A contractor returns from Iraq in 2019 with what she calls "ringing ears and bad sleep." In 2024, an audiologist tells her the hearing loss is permanent and tied to mortar rounds she survived at FOB Warhorse. Her DBA claim is filed in early 2025, nearly six years after her last day of covered employment. The employer's carrier files a motion to dismiss under Section 913. Is the claim time-barred?
The answer depends on when she "became aware" of the work connection, whether her condition qualifies as an occupational disease, whether the employer filed a Section 930 report, and whether any equitable tolling applies. Four separate legal inquiries, each with its own line of OALJ and Benefits Review Board authority, and each capable of resurrecting a claim that looks dead on the face of the calendar.
Section 913(a) of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, incorporated into the DBA, sets a two-year statute of limitations from the date of injury or the date the claimant became aware (or should have become aware) of the relationship between the injury and employment. That sounds simple. It is not. ClaimTrove's decision index contains 416 OALJ decisions where Section 913 is squarely at issue, and the outcomes depend heavily on fact patterns that most attorneys do not spot until a motion to dismiss lands on the desk.
What Does Section 913 Actually Say?
Section 913(a) bars a claim for compensation unless it is filed within one year after the injury or death. For occupational diseases that do not immediately result in disability, the period is two years from the date the employee or beneficiary becomes aware, or should have become aware, of the relationship between the employment, the disease, and the death or disability. Section 913(b) tolls the limitation period if the employer fails to file the Section 930 report required within ten days of learning of the injury.
The interplay matters. An employer who never files an LS-202 First Report of Injury cannot assert the limitations bar at all until the report is filed, at which point the clock starts running. This is not a technicality. It is a deliberate congressional mechanism designed to punish employers who suppress injury reporting, and it is the single most common basis for defeating a Section 913 defense in OALJ practice.
There is also the awareness prong. Under the Shell Offshore v. Director and Grant v. Director line of cases, the clock does not start until the claimant has actual or constructive knowledge of three things: the injury itself, its seriousness, and its connection to employment. A contractor who experiences joint pain for years but is first told by a physician in year four that the pain is caused by repetitive blast exposure has a claim that accrued in year four, not year one. For attorneys new to this area, the standard DBA claims process workflow should always include a Section 913 risk assessment before the LS-203 is filed.
How Does the Occupational Disease Exception Change the Math?
The occupational disease exception is the most important carve-out in the statute. For injuries that are traumatic in origin (a fall, an IED, a vehicle accident), the one-year rule under 913(a) controls from the date of injury. For occupational diseases (hearing loss, PTSD, respiratory conditions, repetitive trauma), the two-year awareness rule under 913(b)(2) controls, and the clock does not start until the claimant knew or should have known the disease was work-related.
The distinction swallows the rule in DBA practice. A huge share of post-deployment claims involve conditions that are occupational diseases under the statute: chronic PTSD, traumatic brain injury with delayed symptoms, noise-induced hearing loss, toxic burn pit exposure claims, and musculoskeletal conditions from body armor and repetitive loading. Each of these triggers the awareness standard rather than the date-of-injury rule.
OALJ judges have generally been generous in finding occupational disease status when the condition developed gradually or manifested after employment ended. Hearing loss claims in particular almost always qualify as occupational diseases under Section 913, extending the limitations window significantly. Similarly, combat-zone PTSD claims typically fall within the occupational disease framework because the diagnostic awareness often lags the precipitating events by years.
The harder cases involve mixed etiologies. A contractor who suffered a specific blast event in 2018 and now presents with PTSD symptoms in 2024 has an argument both ways. Defense counsel will push for a single-incident framing triggering the one-year rule. Claimant's counsel will push for a cumulative-trauma framing triggering the two-year awareness rule. How ALJs resolve this framing question is where the outcomes get interesting, and where the patterns in ClaimTrove's 5,022 OALJ decisions become most valuable.
When Does Section 930 Toll the Entire Statute?
Section 930(f) is the employer reporting requirement, and its interaction with 913 is the single most powerful tool in a claimant's arsenal. When an employer fails to file the required LS-202 within ten days of learning of an injury, Section 930(f) tolls the Section 913 limitations period entirely until the report is filed. No report, no running clock.
This sounds absolute, and in many cases it is. But the tolling is not automatic. The employer must have had "knowledge" of the injury, which is a factual inquiry. Knowledge can be established through supervisor awareness, documented incident reports, medical referrals paid by the employer, or even contemporaneous emails acknowledging the injury. Where the record is thin, the tolling argument gets harder.
There is also a knowledge imputation question. If a field supervisor knew about a contractor's back injury in 2019 but never reported it up the chain, does the employer "know"? Under the prevailing interpretation, yes. Supervisor knowledge is imputed to the employer for 930 purposes. This is why employer-side discovery in Section 913 cases almost always involves deposing every supervisor in the contractor's chain of command for the relevant period.
Defense strategy in modern DBA litigation often focuses on proving that the employer had no knowledge triggering the 930 obligation, which in turn means 913 was never tolled. Claimant strategy focuses on the opposite. Much of the outcome turns on how the Section 20(a) presumption interacts with the evidentiary burden on the knowledge question, a point that many ALJs have treated inconsistently across the body of decisions.
What Equitable Doctrines Save Otherwise Late Claims?
Beyond the statutory exceptions, courts and ALJs have recognized several equitable doctrines that can rescue claims filed outside the Section 913 window. The three most important are estoppel, fraudulent concealment, and mental incapacity tolling.
Estoppel arises when an employer or carrier induces a claimant to delay filing through misrepresentation. Classic examples include representing that the employer will "take care of" the claim, paying medical bills directly without filing an LS-202, or telling the claimant that no formal claim is needed because benefits will continue voluntarily. When the voluntary payments stop and the claimant finally files formally, the limitations clock is estopped from running during the period of employer-induced delay.
Fraudulent concealment applies when the employer or carrier actively conceals the existence of a claim, the work-relatedness of an injury, or the claimant's right to file. This is narrower than estoppel and requires affirmative misrepresentation rather than mere silence. It is rare but decisive when it applies.
Mental incapacity tolling under Section 913(d) extends the filing period for claimants who were mentally incompetent or legally disabled during the limitations window. In DBA practice, this doctrine has been applied to claimants with severe PTSD, traumatic brain injury, or post-deployment psychological crises that rendered them unable to understand or pursue their legal rights. The standard is demanding but not impossible to meet, and medical documentation of the incapacity period is essential.
How Do ALJs Decide Close Cases?
Most Section 913 cases are not decided on clean legal questions. They are decided on fact-specific inquiries into awareness, employer knowledge, and the reasonableness of the claimant's delay. This is where the body of OALJ decisions becomes essential reading, and where attorneys relying on headnotes or treatise summaries will miss what actually moves judges.
The pattern recognition matters because ALJs apply the same statutory language inconsistently depending on panel, circuit, and fact context. A 2022 decision might find that a contractor who first saw a VA psychiatrist in 2020 had awareness triggering a 2020 accrual date. A nearly identical 2023 decision might find that the VA diagnosis was not conclusive because the psychiatrist did not explicitly connect the PTSD to employment, pushing accrual to a later date. The broader OALJ decision landscape shows that these fact-pattern distinctions are often the hinge on which limitations rulings turn.
Circuit variations add another layer. Fifth Circuit cases tend to construe the awareness standard more strictly against claimants, while Ninth Circuit cases generally favor claimants on ambiguous awareness facts. DC Circuit review on appeal tends to defer heavily to ALJ fact-finding on awareness questions, making the initial hearing record dispositive.
The only way to develop real intuition for how a specific ALJ or circuit will treat a close Section 913 case is to read the decisions in that jurisdiction that have addressed similar fact patterns. This is where ClaimTrove's OALJ decision index becomes a practical tool. Search ClaimTrove's index of 5,022 OALJ decisions for Section 913 outcomes matching your specific claim type, injury mechanism, and jurisdiction to see how ALJs have actually ruled on fact patterns like yours.
What Documentation Strengthens a Section 913 Defense Against Dismissal?
When a limitations motion is filed, the claimant's response must be immediate and documentary. The weakest responses are those that argue the legal standard without anchoring the argument in specific record evidence. The strongest responses walk through a timeline of awareness, employer knowledge, and equitable factors with citations to exhibits at every step.
Medical records are the foundation. The first medical note explicitly linking the condition to employment sets the presumptive accrual date, and earlier notes that are ambiguous should be highlighted to show lack of awareness. Employer records matter equally. Any documentation showing the employer knew of the injury (supervisor emails, incident reports, company-paid medical appointments, return-to-work accommodations) supports a 930 tolling argument.
Claimant declarations filling in gaps are important but should be tightly tied to corroborating documents. A declaration saying "I did not know my hearing loss was from work" is useful only when paired with evidence that no physician said so until the relevant date. The same claim must also square with the wage and employment records that establish covered employment and continued exposure, since those records often contain admissions that cut either way on awareness.
Finally, the comparative decision evidence. Identifying three to five OALJ decisions with similar fact patterns where the limitations defense was rejected gives the ALJ a roadmap to ruling in the claimant's favor. Judges are more comfortable ruling in line with existing authority than breaking new ground, and a well-curated set of prior decisions can shift a borderline case.
How Should Attorneys Intake Potentially Late Claims?
The intake interview for any DBA claim more than two years old should include a specific Section 913 protocol. Six questions should be asked at the first meeting: when did symptoms begin, when was the first medical treatment, when did any physician first mention a possible work connection, when was employment terminated, what did the employer know and when, and what if any benefits were voluntarily paid before the formal claim was filed.
The answers set the litigation posture. Claims where awareness clearly post-dates termination by less than two years are straightforward. Claims where awareness is disputed are manageable with good records. Claims where the employer paid medical bills for years but never filed an LS-202 are usually winnable on 930 grounds. Claims where all three factors are adverse require careful equitable tolling analysis before accepting the representation.
Nothing on a limitations defense is routine. The cases turn on narrow factual questions that rarely appear in published treatises and that require decision-level pattern recognition to evaluate properly. Run your Section 913 analysis through ClaimTrove's OALJ decision database to see exactly which awareness fact patterns, employer knowledge scenarios, and equitable tolling arguments have succeeded in similar cases.