Did the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan somehow end the Defense Base Act disability of employees injured in Afghanistan? No–of course not.
A new published Defense Base Act case from the Benefits Review Board (“BRB”) puts to rest a particularly misguided idea pushed by insurance carriers: that disability compensation under the DBA somehow disappeared when the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan.
It did not.
A brief write-up of the BRB’s decision in Woolum v. ARMA Aviation follows.
The Simple Point the Board Got Right
The Defense Base Act is an extension of the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. The DBA borrows many of the Longshore Act’s definitions.
The Longshore Act defines “disability” as a loss of earning capacity due to “injury.” That inquiry doesn’t turn on whether a particular job site still exists—it turns on what the injured worker can earn.
The employer tried to pivot the analysis away from injury and toward geography—arguing that once the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, the claimant’s inability to return there because of his psychological injury no longer mattered.
The Board rejected that framing outright. And rightly so.
Disability is not “the inability to work in Kabul.” It is the inability to earn wages because of injury.
Those are not the same thing.
This Was Never a Close Call
The “Afghanistan withdrawal therefore no disability” theory collapses under even minimal scrutiny.
If the carrier’s argument had been accepted, it would’ve meant:
- A worker’s disability ends when a job disappears for any reason.
- Yet, economic conditions control entitlement to Section 8 disability benefits
- Entire categories of claimants could lose benefits overnight based on world events and nothing personal to their injury or disability
That is not how the DBA works. It never has been.
The Reality of DBA Employment
Even beyond the BRB’s Woolum decision, a quick survey of Career pages on defense contractor websites reveals how these jobs actually work.
The same contractors operating in Afghanistan prior to the withdrawal—Fluor and others—run projects all over the world. The work doesn’t vanish; it relocates.
So even on its own terms, the argument fails. The labor market didn’t disappear. One location did.
The Takeaway
Woolum isn’t complicated. It’s a reaffirmation of core principles:
- Disability is about economics, not geopolitics.
- Earning capacity and retained wage earning capacity is measured broadly.
- External events like the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan do not erase compensable disabilities.
To be sure, Woolum addresses additional issues. But it is the “Afghanistan withdrawal” holding that will lead to Woolum‘s citation in multiple ALJ and BRB decisions.
If you have any questions about the Woolum decision, feel free to contact any of the attorneys at Strongpoint Law Firm for additional information.
