Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 519 U.S. 248, 9 (1997)

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256

INGALLS SHIPBUILDING, INC. v. DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAMS

Opinion of the Court

1990) (defining "entitle" as "To qualify for; to furnish with proper grounds for seeking or claiming").

We reached the same conclusion in Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U. S. 469 (1992). There, Cowart, an injured worker, settled with a third party without obtaining the consent of his employer or his employer's insurance carrier. Cowart thereafter filed a claim for disability benefits under the Act, which his employer contested. The employer argued that Cowart had been a "person entitled to compensation" under the Act at the time of his settlement, and that his failure to obtain his employer's approval of the settlement barred any further recovery of benefits under the Act. In response, Cowart asserted that he had not been a "person entitled to compensation" when he entered into the settlement because that phrase referred only "to injured workers who are either already receiving compensation payments from their employer, or in whose favor an award of compensation has been entered." Id., at 475.

The Court held that Cowart was barred by § 33(g) from receiving further compensation under the Act. We recognized that the relevant time for examining whether a person is "entitled to compensation" is the time of settlement. Ibid. ("The question is whether Cowart, at the time of . . . settlement, was a 'person entitled to compensation' under the terms of § 33(g)(1) of the LHWCA"). We then addressed the definition of the term "person entitled to compensation." We said:

"Both in legal and general usage, the normal meaning of entitlement includes a right or benefit for which a person qualifies, and it does not depend upon whether the right has been acknowledged or adjudicated. It means only that the person satisfies the prerequisites attached to the right." Id., at 477.

We concluded that Cowart had satisfied the prerequisites for obtaining the permanent disability benefits at issue in that

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