No federal law caps how many hours you can work on light duty. Your treating physician sets that number on a work-capacity evaluation based on your injury, your recovery, and what your body can safely tolerate, and your employer has to build the assignment around what the doctor writes. That can be anywhere from a couple of hours a day early in recovery to a full eight-hour shift with restrictions on lifting, standing, or repetitive motion.
Who Decides Your Light Duty Hours
Your doctor is the decision-maker. When completing a work-capacity evaluation, the physician specifies whether you can handle an eight-hour workday and, if not, exactly how many hours you can tolerate. The form also identifies your strength level, which the Department of Labor classifies on a scale from sedentary to very heavy. “Light work” under this system means exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally or up to 10 pounds frequently.1U.S. Department of Labor. Work Capacity Evaluation Musculoskeletal Conditions (OWCP-5c)
The hour count is only part of it. The evaluation also breaks your physical abilities into frequency categories. “Occasionally” means up to about two hours and 40 minutes in an eight-hour day, “frequently” means roughly five hours and 20 minutes, and “constantly” covers the rest.1U.S. Department of Labor. Work Capacity Evaluation Musculoskeletal Conditions (OWCP-5c) So your doctor might clear you for eight hours total but restrict overhead reaching to occasional use, or cap standing at two hours. Those specifics usually matter more than the total, because they shape what your employer can actually assign you to do during those hours.
The number isn’t fixed. Follow-up appointments let your doctor loosen or tighten the restrictions as you heal. You might start on four-hour shifts with heavy limits and move to six hours a month later with fewer. Whatever the current form says is what governs the assignment until it’s updated.
How Long the Assignment Lasts
Most employers treat light duty as temporary. A common approach is capping assignments at around 90 days, then reassessing whether you can return to full duty, need reassignment, or qualify for extended leave. Those caps aren’t set by federal law. They come from internal company policy or collective bargaining agreements.
The medical checkpoint that usually triggers reassessment is Maximum Medical Improvement, the point where your doctor determines that your condition is unlikely to improve significantly with further treatment. Reaching MMI doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fully recovered. It means your recovery has plateaued. If you still have restrictions at that point, the employer has to decide whether to convert temporary light duty into a permanent accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, reassign you, or begin a separation process.
This is where the ADA becomes relevant to your hours. The ADA covers employers with 15 or more employees and requires reasonable accommodations, which can include modified schedules, unless the employer shows undue hardship.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 12112 – Discrimination What it does not require is eliminating essential job functions to build a light duty role. If the core duties of your job require heavy lifting and you can’t lift, the employer doesn’t have to strip the position down, though it does have to consider redistributing marginal tasks or reassigning you to a vacant position you can perform.3U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the ADA
If you’ve exhausted the 12 workweeks of FMLA leave and still can’t work full duty, that isn’t the end of the road either. The EEOC has stated that compliance with the FMLA does not automatically satisfy the ADA, and exceeding the 12-week cap is not, by itself, proof of undue hardship.4U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act
If Your Employer Offers Hours You Can’t Work
The offer has to fit your restrictions. If your doctor says you can sit for four hours with a 10-pound lifting limit and the employer schedules you for eight hours on your feet, that’s not a valid offer. Get your restrictions in writing, keep a copy of the offer, and respond in writing explaining exactly why the assignment doesn’t match your medical limits.
The reason to be careful is that turning down a legitimate offer is one of the costliest mistakes an injured worker can make. In most states, refusing suitable light duty that falls within your doctor’s restrictions ends your workers’ compensation wage-replacement benefits. The logic is straightforward: workers’ comp pays you because you can’t work, and if your employer offers work you can do and you decline, the system treats you as voluntarily unemployed.
This applies even if you have FMLA leave available. You can still take unpaid FMLA leave, but your workers’ comp checks stop, because the benefit is tied to your inability to work rather than your choice to stay home. Federal workers face the same rule in sharper form: if a permanently disabled federal employee refuses vocational rehabilitation or suitable work without good cause, the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs can reduce their benefits based on what they would have earned, and in some cases reduce compensation all the way to zero.5eCFR. 20 CFR 10.519 – What Action Will OWCP Take if an Employee Refuses to Undergo Vocational Rehabilitation
What Reduced Hours Do to Your Pay
If your light duty schedule pays less than your regular job, because you’re working fewer hours or doing lower-skilled tasks, most state workers’ compensation systems provide temporary partial disability benefits to partially close the gap. The standard formula pays roughly two-thirds of the difference between your pre-injury average weekly wage and your current light duty earnings, though some states pay up to 80 percent. These benefits are subject to weekly caps that vary by state.
If you earned $900 per week before your injury and your light duty assignment pays $500, the $400 gap would generate about $267 per week in temporary partial disability benefits in a state using the two-thirds formula. Combined with your light duty wages, you’d take home around $767.
The tax picture also changes the day you go back on payroll. Workers’ compensation benefits for occupational injuries are exempt from federal income tax. Once you return to work on light duty, every dollar you earn as wages is taxable and subject to federal income tax withholding, Social Security, and Medicare.6Internal Revenue Service. Publication 525 – Taxable and Nontaxable Income If you’re getting a mix of light duty wages and partial disability benefits, only the wages are taxed. Your take-home can look lower than expected next to the untaxed comp checks you were receiving.
Light duty doesn’t strip you of Fair Labor Standards Act protections. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour still applies, and many states set a higher floor.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 206 – Minimum Wage If your light duty hours cross 40 in a week, you’re owed overtime at one and a half times your regular rate. Modified duty is not a license to pay you less than minimum wage or skip overtime.
When You and Your Employer Disagree About the Hours
Disagreements over hours generally come from one of two directions. You may think the assignment exceeds your medical restrictions, or your employer may think you can do more than your doctor’s note suggests.
On the employer side, the tool for pushing back is an Independent Medical Examination. The insurer picks the doctor, and the IME provides a second opinion on your work capacity. If the IME contradicts your treating physician, the dispute often goes to the state workers’ compensation board. You generally can’t refuse an IME. In many states, skipping the appointment can suspend your benefits.
On your side, the ADA gives you a right to what the EEOC calls the interactive process, an informal back-and-forth about what accommodations would let you keep working.3U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the ADA This is often where the hours question gets worked out in practice. Your doctor cleared you for six hours but the employer only runs eight-hour shifts. Can the day be shortened? Can tasks be redistributed? Is there a different role that fits? An employer who refuses to engage in this conversation at all is inviting an ADA claim.
If you believe the employer is violating the ADA by refusing any accommodation, or by retaliating against you for asking, you can file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. That charge is a prerequisite to a federal ADA lawsuit; you can’t go straight to court.8U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance: Workers’ Compensation and the ADA
Whichever direction the disagreement runs, documentation decides most of these cases. Keep every doctor’s note, every work-capacity form, every email about the assignment, and every written offer. The side with better records tends to win.