View all text of Subpartiv [§ 3681 - § 3683]
§ 3682. Administration of certain disability benefits
(a) Continuation of cash relief payments to employees under Act of July 8, 1937
(1) The Commission, or any other United States Government agency or private entity acting pursuant to an agreement with the Commission, under the Act entitled “An Act authorizing cash relief for certain employees of the Panama Canal not coming within the provisions of the Canal Zone Retirement Act”, approved July 8, 1937 (50 Stat. 478; 68 Stat. 17), may continue the payments of cash relief to those individual former employees of the Canal Zone Government or Panama Canal Company or their predecessor agencies not coming within the scope of the former Canal Zone Retirement Act whose services were terminated prior to October 5, 1958, because of unfitness for further useful service by reason of mental or physical disability resulting from age or disease.
(2) Subject to subsection (b), cash relief under this subsection may not exceed $1.50 per month for each year of service of the employees so furnished relief, with a maximum of $45 per month, plus the amount of any cost-of-living increases in such cash relief granted before October 1, 1979, pursuant to section 181 of title 2 of the Canal Zone Code (as in effect on September 30, 1979), nor be paid to any employee who, at the time of termination for disability prior to October 5, 1958, had less than 10 years’ service with the Canal Zone Government, the Panama Canal Company, or their predecessor agencies on the Isthmus of Panama.
(b) Additional amounts for relief under subsection (a)
(c) Increases in cash relief payments
(d) Cash relief payments to widows
The Commission may pay cash relief to the widow of any former employee of the Canal Zone Government or the Panama Canal Company who, until the time of his death, receives or has received cash relief under subsection (a) of this section, under section 181 of title 2 of the Canal Zone Code (as in effect on September 30, 1979), or under the Act of July 8, 1937, referred to in such subsection (a). The term “widow” as used in this subsection includes only the following:
(1) a woman legally married to such employee at the time of his termination for disability and at his death;
(2) a woman who, although not legally married to such former employee at the time of his termination, had resided continuously with him for at least five years immediately preceding the employee’s termination under such circumstances as would at common law make the relationship a valid marriage and who continued to reside with him until his death; and
(3) a woman who has not remarried or assumed a common-law relationship with any other person.
Cash relief granted to such a widow shall not at any time exceed 50 percent of the rate at which cash relief, inclusive of any additional payment under subsection (b) of this section, would be payable to the former employee were he then alive.
(e) Applicability of subchapter III of chapter 83 of title 5
(Pub. L. 96–70, title I, § 1245, Sept. 27, 1979, 93 Stat. 475; Pub. L. 104–201, div. C, title XXXV, §§ 3538, 3548(c)(2), Sept. 23, 1996, 110 Stat. 2864, 2869.)