Is a longshore worker permanently disqualified from receiving any benefits from his employer due to a tentative third-party settlement?

QUESTIONS PRESENTED This case poses important questions regarding Section 33(g) of the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA). Question I. Is a longshore worker permanently disqualified from receiving any benefits from his employer because his counsel, who lacked actual or apparent authority to finalize a settlement on the worker’s behalf, reached a_ tentative third-party settlement? Question II. If 33 U.S.C. § 933(g) was written to allow employers to offset liability by the amount of a third-party settlement, may all compensation be denied to an injured worker who did not accept the third-party offer, did not sign a release, and did not receive any funds? Question III. Was the Jones Act, General Maritime Law, 905(b), or other legal regime that may have been applicable in the district court, the third party case, sufficiently independent of the more specific requirement of § 933(g) so that a finding of a settlement by the district court was neither collateral estoppel nor binding on the administrative judge or the BRB and the doctrine was erroneously applied? ii RULE 14.1 STATEMENT