What It Pays, The 30-Day Rule, And The Lawsuit You Don't Know You Have.

Workers' compensation in New York pays your medical bills and two-thirds of your lost wages without proof of fault, and in exchange you cannot sue your employer. That part matches most states. What is different is everything around it: a 30-day notice rule that carriers use against injured workers, a system that lets you pick your own doctor, lump-sum awards for permanent loss of use of a limb, and, for construction workers, Labor Law claims against owners and contractors that exist almost nowhere else. This article explains all of it as it stands in 2026.

What workers' compensation in New York pays

Medical treatment

First, the carrier covers all necessary treatment for the work injury with no co-pay: emergency care, surgery, therapy, prescriptions, and equipment. Unlike New Jersey, New York lets you choose your treating doctor from any provider authorized by the Workers' Compensation Board, although the carrier may require you to use its network for diagnostic testing and pharmacy. Treatment follows the Board's Medical Treatment Guidelines, so care outside the guidelines requires a variance request. In addition, carriers can send you to an independent medical examination, and the IME doctor's report often starts the process of shrinking a claim.

Wage replacement

Second, cash benefits equal two-thirds of your average weekly wage multiplied by your percentage of disability, up to the state maximum (WCL § 15). Specifically, for injuries on or after July 1, 2026, the maximum is $1,281.50 per week and the minimum is $384.45; the Board resets both each July based on the state average weekly wage. Benefits start on the eighth day of disability, and if you are out more than 14 days the carrier pays you retroactively for the first week (WCL § 12). Meanwhile, a doctor who rates you "50 percent disabled" cuts the check in half, which is why both sides fight the degree-of-disability finding at every hearing.

Permanent disability

New York splits permanent injuries into two tracks. First, schedule loss of use covers arms, legs, hands, feet, fingers, toes, eyes, and hearing: the statute assigns each a number of weeks (312 for an arm, 288 for a leg, 244 for a hand), then a doctor rates the percentage of loss, and you receive that percentage of the weeks at your weekly rate, even if you are back at work at full pay.

For non-schedule injuries, such as the back, neck, and head, the Board classifies you as permanently partially disabled, with a cap of 225 to 525 weeks of benefits depending on your loss of wage-earning capacity, or as permanently totally disabled, which pays for life. Finally, death benefits go to the family in fatal cases.

What workers' compensation in New York does not pay

• Pain and suffering. Not a category in the comp system at all, for instance.
• The top third of your wages, and everything above the cap. A union carpenter earning $2,400 a week collects $1,281.50.
• Lost future earnings beyond the capped weeks for a non-schedule injury, as well.
• A spouse's losses, except death benefits.

All of those are recoverable in a lawsuit, however, just not against your employer. WCL § 11 makes comp the exclusive remedy against the employer, with one narrow exception for intentional harm. Instead, the lawsuit is against everyone else who caused the injury: a general contractor, a building owner, a driver, an equipment manufacturer, a property manager. In New York, that third-party case often dwarfs the comp claim, for one reason.

Why workers' compensation in New York is different: Labor Law §§ 240 and 241

Above all, no other state gives construction workers what New York does. Labor Law § 240(1), known as the Scaffold Law, makes owners and general contractors strictly liable when a worker falls from a height or a falling object strikes him and proper safety devices were missing. Moreover, the worker's own carelessness is not a defense unless it was the sole cause of the accident. Labor Law § 241(6) creates liability for violations of specific Industrial Code safety rules, and § 200 codifies the general duty to provide a safe workplace. Because these claims run against owners and contractors rather than the employer, they sit outside the comp bar entirely.

As a result, a construction worker in New York who falls from a scaffold or a ladder has two claims from day one: the comp claim against the employer's carrier, and a § 240(1) case against the owner and general contractor. The comp claim pays the bills, while the Labor Law case pays for the injury. A worker who files only the first has left most of the case on the table.

The grave injury rule

In addition, one more piece of WCL § 11 matters here. The owner or contractor you sue will usually try to bring your employer into the case to share the cost. However, it can only do that if you suffered a "grave injury" as the statute defines it: an amputation, paralysis, permanent total disability, a brain injury causing permanent total disability, loss of an eye or hearing, or a few others. The rule does not affect whether you can sue. Instead, it affects who ends up paying, and it shapes how defendants and insurers negotiate.

The deadlines for workers' compensation in New York

How a claim for workers' compensation in New York actually moves

Getting the claim started

1. Report, treat, file. First, written notice to the employer, treatment with a Board-authorized doctor, and Form C-3 to the Board. The employer files its C-2F and the carrier accepts or controverts the claim.
2. Hearings before a Workers' Compensation Law Judge. Next, disputed claims go to hearings, often by video, on compensability, degree of disability, and treatment.
3. Independent medical examinations. Meanwhile, the carrier's doctor will rate you lower than yours. The two sides then litigate the gap.

Permanency and settlement

4. Maximum medical improvement and permanency. After treatment ends, schedule loss of use or classification, with a permanency hearing that sets the award.
5. Settlement. Eventually, many cases resolve by a Section 32 waiver agreement, a lump sum that closes the claim; the Board must approve it and you get a review period before it is final.
6. Fees. Finally, there is no upfront fee. The Board sets and approves attorney fees and deducts them from the award, so you never pay out of pocket.

Where the Board hears claims for workers' compensation in New York City

The Workers' Compensation Board hears claims at district offices around the state, and it assigns most New York City claims by the injured worker's zip code. Our Staten Island office serves workers across the five boroughs, Long Island, and Westchester.

Situations that change the case

Who is covered

• Undocumented workers. Notably, entitled to workers' compensation and to Labor Law claims in New York regardless of immigration status.
• Misclassified and "off the books" workers. Likewise, the Board looks at the actual relationship. The Uninsured Employers Fund can pay workers of uninsured employers, and the employer faces penalties.
• Work-related stress. In addition, since January 1, 2025, New York allows claims for certain mental health injuries caused by extraordinary work-related stress, not only for first responders.

What is covered

• Occupational disease and repetitive injury. Also covered, and the notice and filing clocks run from when you knew the condition was work-related.
• Retaliation. Separately, punishing a worker for claiming comp is unlawful under WCL § 120. That is an employment matter separate from the injury claim.
• Federal and rail workers. By contrast, longshore workers and railroad employees fall under federal systems rather than state comp.
• Cross-border workers. Finally, a New Jersey resident hurt on a New York job, or the reverse, may have a choice of which state's system to use. The choice matters, so make it early.

How Onal Injury Law handles New York workers' comp cases

Our New York office is in Staten Island, with New Jersey offices in Elmwood Park and Cliffside Park, and we handle workers' compensation in New York for injured workers across the five boroughs and beyond. Our office works in English, Turkish, and Spanish. Meanwhile, New Jersey workers should read our companion article on workers' compensation in New Jersey, which follows different rules.

We are not limited to New Jersey and New York. Onal Injury Law has offices in New Jersey, New York, and Texas, and we review workplace injury cases from anywhere in the United States. If your injury happened in another state, we evaluate the case. Then, where the case belongs in a court or agency where we do not practice, we work with locally admitted counsel while our firm stays involved. Consultations are free and confidential.

Related pages

• Workplace Accidents Third-party lawsuits alongside comp→
• New York Car Accidents Injured while driving for work in NY→
• New York Truck Accidents Delivery and commercial vehicle injuries→
• Brain & Spinal Cord Injury Grave injury and permanent total disability→
• Workers' Compensation in New Jersey The other side of the river, different rules→

Workers' comp questions we hear most in New York