Section 57 Disablement gratuity and pension
Subject to the provisions of this section, an employed earner shall be entitled to disablement benefit if he suffers as the result of the relevant accident from loss of physical or mental faculty such that the assessed extent of the resulting disablement amounts to not less than 1 per cent.
In this Act, references to loss of physical faculty include disfigurement, whether or not accompanied, by any actual loss of faculty.
" Assessed " means assessed in accordance with Schedule 8 to this Act; and for the purposes of that Schedule there shall be deemed not to be any relevant loss of faculty when the extent of the resulting disablement, if so assessed, would not amount to 1 per cent.
Disablement benefit shall not be available to a person until after the third day of the period of 156 days (disregarding Sundays) beginning with the day of the relevant accident nor until after the last day (if any) of that period on which he is incapable of work as the result of the relevant accident:
Provided that, where he makes a claim for disablement benefit in respect of the accident before the end of that period and does not withdraw it before it is finally determined, then if on any day of that period not earlier than the making of the claim he is not so incapable of work, the fact that he is or may be so incapable on a subsequent day of the period shall be disregarded for the purposes of this subsection.
Where the extent of the disablement is assessed for the period taken into account as amounting to less than 20 per cent., disablement benefit shall be a disablement gratuity—
of an amount fixed, in accordance with the length of the period and the degree of the disablement, by a prescribed scale, but not in any case exceeding the amount specified in Schedule 4, Part V, paragraph 2; and
payable, if and in such cases as regulations so provide, by instalments.
Where the extent of the disablement is assessed for the period taken into account as amounting to 20 per cent. or more, disablement benefit shall be a disablement pension for that period payable at the appropriate weekly rate specified in Schedule 4, Part V, paragraph 3:
Provided that where that period is limited by reference to a definite date, the pension shall cease on the death of the beneficiary before that date.