The Light Duty Offer That Arrived Three Days After Surgery
Your client had rotator cuff surgery in Germany after an injury on a military base in Afghanistan. Three days post-op, the carrier sent a letter offering a "modified duty" position answering phones at the employer's Virginia office. The position pays $14 an hour. Your client was earning $1,800 a week overseas. The carrier's message was clear: accept this offer or lose your temporary total disability benefits.
This scenario plays out in DBA claims every week. Carriers use light duty offers and return-to-work programs as leverage to terminate or reduce TTD payments. The tactic is legal when done properly. But it is frequently abused, particularly in the DBA context where overseas employment creates complications that domestic workers never face.
Understanding the legal framework behind light duty disputes gives you the tools to challenge pretextual offers and protect your client's average weekly wage. The stakes are high. A successful light duty challenge can mean the difference between $800 a week in partial disability and $1,200 a week in total disability for your client.
What Legal Standard Governs Light Duty Offers in DBA Cases?
The Defense Base Act incorporates Section 8(h) of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act. That section requires an injured employee to seek suitable employment after reaching maximum medical improvement or after receiving a light duty release from their treating physician. Carriers rely on this provision to argue that the claimant must accept available work or face benefit reduction.
The key phrase is "suitable alternative employment." An employer or carrier cannot offer any job and call it suitable. The position must fall within the claimant's physical restrictions as documented by a physician. It must be a genuine position with real duties, not a fabricated desk job created solely to reduce benefits. And critically, courts have held that the wage must be reasonably comparable to the claimant's pre-injury earnings.
Section 8(h) also imposes a burden on the carrier. Before reducing TTD benefits based on a light duty offer, the carrier must demonstrate that the offered position is available, that the claimant can perform it given their medical restrictions, and that the claimant either refused it or failed to cooperate with vocational rehabilitation. This burden-shifting framework is your primary weapon against pretextual offers. Understanding how carriers calculate TTD benefits and the disputes that arise from those calculations gives you the full picture of what is at stake when a light duty offer arrives.
How Do Carriers Weaponize Light Duty Offers Against DBA Claimants?
Carrier tactics in light duty disputes follow recognizable patterns. Once you identify the pattern, you can prepare your response before the carrier files its motion to reduce benefits.
The most common tactic is the premature light duty offer. The carrier sends an offer before the claimant reaches maximum medical improvement, often within days or weeks of surgery. The offer typically references a "desk job" or "administrative position" at the employer's stateside office. The timing is designed to pressure the claimant into accepting reduced pay or to create a record of "refusal" that the carrier can use later.
The second tactic is the phantom job. The carrier cites a position that technically exists on paper but has no actual duties, no supervisor, and no realistic prospect of continued employment. These positions often disappear within weeks of the claimant accepting them. The carrier's goal is to break the continuity of TTD benefits. Once benefits are terminated, the claimant bears the burden of proving they cannot work to restart them.
The third tactic targets the overseas wage differential. A contractor earning $2,000 per week in a combat zone receives a light duty offer paying $600 per week in the United States. The carrier argues that the domestic wage reflects the claimant's "actual earning capacity" and seeks to reduce benefits based on the difference between pre-injury wages and light duty wages. This wage differential tactic is particularly damaging because DBA average weekly wage calculations for overseas contractors often include hazard pay, per diem, and overtime that no stateside position will match.
The fourth tactic is the vocational rehabilitation referral used as a backdoor to benefit reduction. The carrier refers the claimant to a vocational counselor who identifies "suitable" stateside jobs at a fraction of the overseas wage. The carrier then argues that the claimant has earning capacity based on the vocational assessment, regardless of whether the claimant actually obtained those jobs.
Why Is There Often No Light Duty Available for Overseas Contractors?
The fundamental problem with light duty offers in DBA cases is geographic reality. A security contractor injured in Iraq cannot perform "light duty" at Forward Operating Base Falcon. The employer has no stateside office where the contractor can answer phones. And even if the employer has a US office, the light duty position rarely involves the same type of work at the same pay rate.
This geographic disconnect creates an argument that domestic light duty law does not cleanly apply to DBA cases. Under domestic Longshore Act claims, a longshoreman offered light duty at the same waterfront facility faces a straightforward choice. The job is nearby. The pay is comparable. The work environment is familiar. None of those factors translate to a DBA contractor being offered a desk job 7,000 miles from their overseas worksite.
Courts and ALJs have recognized this distinction, though not uniformly. Some decisions hold that the carrier cannot reduce benefits based on a stateside light duty offer unless the position approximates the overseas earnings. Other decisions give carriers more latitude, holding that the claimant's earning capacity should be measured by the domestic labor market if the overseas position is no longer available. This split in approach makes vocational rehabilitation and Section 39 obligations a critical area for DBA practitioners to understand.
The employer's contract status adds another layer. If the federal contract ended while the claimant was recovering, no overseas position exists to return to. The carrier then argues that domestic labor market rates should govern. You counter by arguing that the claimant's loss of earning capacity should be measured against their overseas wages, not against jobs they would never have taken absent the injury.
How Do You Challenge an Improper Light Duty Offer?
Challenging a pretextual light duty offer requires medical, vocational, and contractual evidence. Start with the medical restrictions.
Get a detailed functional capacity evaluation from the treating physician. The evaluation should specify exactly what your client can and cannot do: lifting limits, standing duration, sitting duration, cognitive limitations from pain medication, and any environmental restrictions. Compare every restriction against the offered position's physical demands. If the carrier's light duty offer requires four hours of standing and your client is restricted to one hour, the offer fails the "suitable" test.
Next, attack the wage component. Document your client's pre-injury overseas earnings in detail: base salary, hazard pay, danger pay, overtime, per diem, housing allowance, and any other compensation. Then compare that total to the light duty offer. A 60% or 70% pay cut is strong evidence that the offer is not genuinely "suitable alternative employment." Under the LHWCA framework, an injured worker is not required to accept employment that represents a dramatic reduction from their pre-injury earning capacity.
Third, investigate the position itself. Request the job description, the supervisor's name, the office location, and the expected duration of the position. Ask whether anyone currently holds the position. Ask whether the employer has offered similar positions to other injured employees and how long those employees remained in the role. If the position was created solely for your client after the injury, that fact supports an argument that it is pretextual.
Finally, document the claimant's job search efforts. Even while challenging the light duty offer, your client should demonstrate a good-faith effort to find suitable employment. A documented job search undercuts the carrier's argument that the claimant is simply refusing to work. It also positions your client favorably if the case reaches an ALJ. Knowing what to do when a carrier denies your claim or reduces benefits helps you move quickly through the appeals process while building your evidentiary record.
What Factors Drive Favorable Outcomes at the OALJ Level?
ClaimTrove's database of over 5,000 OALJ decisions includes hundreds of cases involving light duty and return-to-work disputes. While every case turns on its specific facts, patterns emerge from the data.
ALJs consistently scrutinize the timing of light duty offers. Offers made before the claimant reaches maximum medical improvement receive heightened skepticism. If the claimant's treating physician has not yet released them for any work, a light duty offer is premature and carries little weight.
The specificity of the offer matters. Vague offers referencing "administrative work" or "available positions" fail more often than offers with detailed job descriptions, identified supervisors, and confirmed start dates. ALJs want to see that the employer actually had a real position available, not a theoretical one.
Wage comparability is a recurring factor. When the light duty wage represents less than 50% of the pre-injury overseas wage, ALJs are more likely to find the offer unsuitable. The greater the wage gap, the stronger the claimant's argument that the offer does not represent genuine "suitable alternative employment."
The claimant's cooperation also matters. Claimants who engage with vocational rehabilitation, document their job search, and communicate with the carrier in good faith receive more favorable treatment than those who simply refuse all offers without explanation. Even when the offer is pretextual, a blanket refusal without documented reasons weakens your position.
If you want to research how ALJs in your jurisdiction have handled light duty disputes, or identify which carriers most frequently use return-to-work tactics, run a ClaimTrove investigation. The OALJ decision database surfaces relevant precedent in seconds, giving you the case law you need to counter the carrier's next move.