For a death case related to a prior award, the filing window is measured from which date?

• A. Date of injury
• B. Date of knowledge
• C. Date of disability
• D. Date of termination

Answer: (C)

The timing rule in this situation uses the date disability began as the starting point for the filing window. When a death claim follows a worker with a prior award, the key trigger for when you must file is when the worker first became disabled, because that is when the ongoing impairment and loss of earning capacity—the basis for the prior award—started to exist. The death benefit linkage rests on that period of disability, not simply on when the injury occurred or when someone learned about the claim.

If you used the injury date, you could misplace the deadline relative to when benefits become potentially payable. The knowledge date is about when someone discovers a condition or claim in certain contexts, but it doesn’t determine the filing window for a death claim tied to a prior award. The termination date isn’t relevant to establishing the start of the filing period either.

For example, if the injury happened in January but disability began in March, the filing window for the death-related claim would be measured from March, not from January. This anchors the deadline to the point at which disability actually began.