Legal Question in Workers Comp in Maryland

The workers' compensation law sets out the amount of recovery to which an injured worker is entitled based upon the nature of the injury. The loss of a 3rd (ring) finger is rated at 30 weeks of compensation. But because he lost a finger, he's entitled to weekly compensation as if it was the type of loss worth more than 75 weeks. The weekly amount is the lesser of 2/3 of your husband's gross pay at the time he was injured, but cannot exceed 1/3 of the average weekly wage for a MD employee, which is probably less than what your husband was earning. In 2010, the state avg. weekly wage was $920, so 1/3 of that would be $307. Of course, if the injury occurred in a different year, the avg. weekly wage would be different. So 30 wks. x $307 would be $9210, which would be the most your husband would be entitled to (I'm assuming he was earning more than $460/wk). The lawyer's and any fees for medical reports solicited by your lawyer would come out of that. The amount of the fee is also set by statute--ask the lawyer to show you that. Of course this is on top of the temporary disability payments he should have been receiving during the healing period. So it sounds like this settlement is on the low side, even with medicals remaining open, which your husband would get anyway if he went to a hearing.