Determination of disability. mining monthly compensation and years of service and for the pur- § 228b. Eligibility for annuities; time of accrual. 4. Individuals having a current connection with the railroad industry, and whose permanent physical or mental condition is such as to be disabling for work in their regular occupation, and who (i) will have completed twenty years of service or (ii) will have attained the age of sixty. The Board, with the cooperation of employers and employees, shall secure the establishment of standards determining the physical and mental conditions which permanently disqualify employees for work in the several occupations in the railroad industry, and the Board, employers, and employees shall cooperate in the promotion of the greatest practicable degree of uniformity in the standards applied by the several employers. An individual's condition shall be deemed to be disabling for work in his regular occupation if he will have been disqualified by his employer because of disability for service in his regular occupation in accordance with the applicable standards so established; if the employee will not have been so disqualified by his employer, the Board shall determine whether his condition is disabling for work in his regular occupation in accordance with the standards generally established; and, if the employee's regular occupation is not one with respect to which standards will have been established, the standards relating to a reasonably comparable occupation shall be used. If there is no such comparable occupation, the Board shall determine whether the employee's condition is disabling for work in his regular occupation by determining whether under the practices generally prevailing in industries in which such occupation exists such condition is a permanent disqualification for work in such occupation. For the purposes of this section, an employee's "regular occupation" shall be deemed to be the occupation in which he will have been engaged in more calendar months than the calendar months in which he will have been engaged in any other occupation during the last preceding five calendar years, whether or not consecutive, in each of which years he will have earned wages or salary, except that, if an employee establishes that during the last fifteen consecutive calendar years he will have been engaged in another occupation in one-half or more of all the months in which he will have earned wages or salary, he may claim such other occupation as his regular occupation; or 5. Individuals whose permanent physical or mental condition is such that they are unable to engage in any regular employment. Such satisfactory proof shall be made from time to time as prescribed by the Board, of the disability provided for in paragraph 4 or 5 of this subsection and of the continuance of such disability (according to the standards applied in the establishment of such disability) until the employee attains the age of sixty-five. If the individual fails to comply with the requirements prescribed by the Board as to proof of the continuance of the disability until he attains the age of sixty-five years, his right to an annuity by reason of such disability shall, except for good cause shown to the Board, cease, but without prejudice to his rights to any subsequent annuity to which he may be entitled. If before attaining the age of sixty-five an employee in receipt of an annuity under paragraph 4 or 5 of this subsection is found by the Board to be no longer disabled as provided in said paragraphs his annuity shall cease upon the last day of the month in which he ceases to be so disabled. If after cessation of his disability annuity the employee will have acquired additional years of service, such additional years of service may be credited to him with the same effect as if no annuity had previously been awarded to him. (b) An annuity shall be paid only if the applicant shall have relinquished such rights as he may have to return to the service of an employer and of the person by whom he was last employed; but this requirement shall not apply to the individuals mentioned in subdivisions 4 and 5 of subsection (a) of this section prior to attaining age sixty-five. (i) In the event military service is or has been used as the basis or as a partial basis for a pension, disability compensation, or any other gratuitous benefits payable on a periodic basis under any other Act of Congress, any annuity under sections 228a to 228c-1, 228e-228h, 2281-228p, 228r, and 228s of the Railroad Retirement Act of 1935, which is based in part on such military service and is with respect to a calendar month for all or part of which such pension or other benefit is also payable, shall be reduced with respect to that month by the proportion which the number of years of service by which such military service increases the years of service, or the service period, as the case may be, bears to the total years of service, or by the aggregate amount of such pension or other benefits with respect to that month, whichever would result in the smaller reduction. (ii) a "child" shall have been dependent upon its parent employee at the time of his death; shall not be adopted after such death by other than a stepparent, grandparent, aunt, or uncle; shall be unmarried; and shall be less than eighteen years of age, or shall have a permanent physical or mental condition which is such that he is unable to engage Military service excompensated. tended if otherwise Survivor benefit. Disabled child over dependent. 18 considered Nonassignability of payments. Sickness benefits. Physical examination provided. in any regular employment: Provided, That such disability began before the child attains age eighteen; and * § 2281. Assignability; exemption from levy. Notwithstanding any other law of the United States, or of any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, no annuity or pension payment shall be assignable or be subject to any tax or to garnishment, attachment, or other legal process under any circumstances whatsoever, nor shall the payments thereof be anticipated. § 228s. Incompetence. [See 45 U.S.C. 228s.] Chapter 11-Railroad Unemployment Insurance § 362. Duties and powers of Board. (n) Sickness benefits; examinations; information and reports; contracts and expenses for examinations. Any employee claiming, entitled to, or receiving sickness benefits under this chapter may be required to take such examination, physical, medical, mental, or otherwise, in such manner and at such times and by such qualified individuals, including medical officers or employees of the United States or a State, as the Board may prescribe. The place or places of examination shall be reasonably convenient for the employee. No sickness or maternity benefits shall be payable under this chapter with respect to any period during which the employee unreasonably refuses to take or willfully obstructs an examination as prescribed by the Board. Any doctor who renders any attendance, treatment, attention, or care, or performs any examination with respect to a sickness of an employee or as to the expected date of birth of a female employee's child, or the birth of such a child, upon which a claim or right to benefits under this chapter is based, shall furnish the Board, in such manner and form and at such times as the Board by regulations may prescribe, information and reports relative thereto and to the condition of the employee. An application for sickness or maternity benefits under this chapter shall contain a waiver of any doctor-patient privilege that the employee may have with respect to any sickness or maternity period upon which such application is based: Provided, That such information shall not be disclosed by the Board except in a court proceeding relating to any claim for benefits by the employee under this chapter. The Board may enter into agreements or arrangements with doctors, hospitals, clinics, or other persons for securing the examination, physical, medical, mental, or otherwise, of employees claiming, entitled to, or receiving sickness or maternity benefits under this chapter and the performance of services or the use of facilities in connection with the execution of statements of sickness. The Board may compensate any such doctors, hospitals, clinics, or other persons upon such reasonable basis as the Board shall prescribe. Such doctors, hospitals, clinics, or other persons and persons employed by any of them shall not be subject to section 66 of Title 5. In the event that the Board pays for the physical or mental examination of an employee or for the execution of a statement of sickness and such employee's claim for benefits is based upon such examination or statement, the Board shall deduct from any sickness or maternity benefits payable to the employee pursuant to such claim such amount as, in the judgment of the Board, is a fair and reasonable charge for such examination or execution of such statement. (q) Investigations and research with respect to accidents and Research on accident disabilities. The Board shall engage in and conduct research projects, investigations, and studies with respect to the cause, care, and prevention of, and benefits for accidents and disabilities and other subjects deemed by the Board to be related thereto, and shall recommend legislation deemed advisable in the light of such research projects, investigations, and studies. prevention. Seamen's wages, no deductions. TITLE 46-SHIPPING Chapter 18-Merchant Seamen, Wages of Seamen § 599. Advances and allotments. (a) It shall be unlawful in any case to pay any seaman wages in advance of the time when he has actually earned the same, or to pay such advance wages, or to make any order, or note, or other evidence of indebtedness therefor to any other person, or to pay any person, for the shipment of seamen when payment is deducted or to be deducted from a seaman's wages. (g) The provisions of this section shall not apply to, or render unlawful, deductions made by an employer from the wages of a seaman, pursuant to the written consent of the seaman, if (1) such deductions are paid into a trust fund established for the sole and exclusive benefit of seamen employed by such employer, and their families and dependents (or of such seamen, families, and dependents jointly with seamen employed by other employers and their families and dependents); and (2) such payments are held in trust for the purpose Exceptions: Medical of providing, either from principal or income or both, for the benefit of such seamen, their families, and dependents, medical and/or hospital care, pensions on retirement or death of the seamen, life insurance, unemployment benefits, compensation for illness or injuries resulting from occupational activity, sickness, accident, and disability compensation, or any one or more of the foregoing benefits, or for the purpose of purchasing insurance to provide any one or more of such benefits. care and benefits. Provisions for ship hospital. PROTECTION AND RELIEF OF MERCHANT SEAMEN § 660-1. Space and accommodations for crew; hospital compartments. In addition to the space allotment for lodgings provided in this section, on all merchant vessels of the United States which in the ordinary course of their trade make voyages of more than three days' duration between ports, and which carry a crew of twelve or more seamen, there shall be constructed a compartment, suitably separated from other spaces, for hospital purposes, and such compartment shall have at least one bunk for every twelve seamen, constituting her crew, provided that not more than six bunks shall be required in any case. Every vessel belonging to a citizen of the United States, bound from a port in the United States to any foreign port, or being of the burden of seventy-five tons or upward, and bound from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, shall be provided with a chest of medicines * * * 386 * |