In the oilfield, light duty usually means sitting in the yard shack, washing trucks or sweeping the shop. Sometimes it's a real job that helps you heal and keeps a check coming. Sometimes it's a way to cut your benefits or push you to quit. Here's how to tell the difference.

Why the Call Comes So Fast

A worker on light duty is cheaper for the carrier. Every dollar you earn on light duty reduces the income benefits it has to pay. Some companies also want the injury off their lost time records, because lost time injuries hurt their safety numbers with operators. None of that makes light duty bad. It just means the offer is built around their interests, so check it against yours.

What Makes an Offer Bona Fide

Texas DWC Rule 129.6 sets the bar. A real light duty offer has to be in writing and include all of this:

A phone call saying "come back Monday, we'll find something for you" is not a bona fide offer.

The distance rule matters in the Permian

A lot of hands live hours from the patch and drive in for their hitch. An offer to report daily to a Midland yard when you're recovering at home in East Texas or Louisiana may not be geographically accessible. The rule requires the carrier to weigh how far you'd travel, how your injury affects driving and if you even have a way to get there.

What Happens to Your Check If You Say No

While you're off work, comp pays temporary income benefits, generally 70 percent of the difference between your average weekly wage before the injury and what you earn now, up to the state maximum.

If you turn down a bona fide offer, the carrier can treat the offered pay as if you were earning it. If light duty pays as much as you made before, your income benefits can drop to zero. If it pays less, you'd get 70 percent of the gap. That kicks in on the day you reject the offer, or seven days after you receive it if you never answer.

The exception: if your treating doctor tells the carrier the job doesn't fit your restrictions, the carrier can't count the offered wage against you.

How to Handle the Offer

If you disagree with the carrier about an offer, you can request a benefit review conference with the Division of Workers' Compensation.

When Light Duty Isn't Light

This is the most common problem. The paper says sedentary work. Then somebody needs a hand on the rig floor, a truck needs unloading or the shop needs help with pipe. If you're asked to go beyond your restrictions:

A new or worse injury on light duty can become part of your claim, but it's much easier to prove when you documented the problem as it happened. Getting written up or fired for refusing work outside your restrictions can also be evidence of retaliation. See can I be fired for an oilfield injury claim.

If the Light Duty Job Goes Away

Light duty in the oilfield doesn't always last. Activity slows, the yard job gets cut or the company decides it doesn't need you. If you lose a light duty job while you're still under restrictions, your income benefits can pick back up, because your earnings dropped for a reason tied to the injury. Income benefits generally end when your doctor says you've reached maximum medical improvement or after 104 weeks.

Light Duty With a Nonsubscriber

Rule 129.6 is a comp rule. If your employer is a nonsubscriber, the light duty terms come from its private injury plan, not the state. Turning it down may cost you plan benefits or the job itself. On the other side, the ADA can require reasonable accommodations at companies with 15 or more employees, and pushing you into work that makes your injury worse can become part of a negligence case. See nonsubscriber employers.