In short
Article 5-A of the Workmen’s Accident Compensation System Act requires the employer to reserve the job the worker held when the accident happened and to reinstate them in it, subject to three conditions. The first is the clock: you must require reinstatement within fifteen days counted from when you were discharged or authorised to work with a right to treatment, and that requirement may not be made after twelve months have run from the date of the accident — or six months if the employer had fifteen employees or fewer on that date. The second is being mentally and physically fit to hold the job when you ask for it. The third is that the job subsists, and the Act defines that in your favour: it subsists when it is vacant or occupied by another worker, and it is presumed to have been vacant if it was filled with someone else within the thirty days following your request. If the employer does not comply, they must pay you the wages you would have earned had you been reinstated and are also liable for all damages, claimable in court by ordinary action or through the wage-claim procedure of Act 2 of 1961.
What is it?
It is Article 5-A of Act 45-1935, the one requiring the employer to hold your job while you are disabled by a Fund case and to give it back when you are discharged, with the three conditions the Act sets and what they owe you if they do not comply.
Who can do it?
It applies in cases of incapacity for work under Act 45-1935, that is where the disability comes from an injury or occupational illness covered by the State Insurance Fund. The duty falls on the employer who employed the worker when the accident happened, and the job to be reserved is the one the worker held at that moment.
Requirements
- Requiring the employer to restore you within fifteen (15) days counted from the date you were discharged or authorised to work with a right to treatment.Verified against the official source
- That the requirement not be made after twelve (12) months have run from the date of the accident, or six (6) months for employers with fifteen (15) employees or fewer on the date of the accident.Verified against the official source
- Being mentally and physically fit to hold that job at the moment you ask the employer to restore you.Verified against the official source
- That the job subsists at the moment you ask: the Act understands it subsists when it is vacant or occupied by another worker.Verified against the official source
Documents you need
Information pending verification.
Cost
Step by step
Step 1: The duty is two things, not one
Article 5-A opens like this: “In cases of incapacity for work under the provisions of this Act, the employer shall be obliged to reserve the job the worker held at the moment the accident occurred and to reinstate them in it.” Reserve and reinstate. Holding your post while you are away is half of it; giving it back when you return is the other half, and that is the one people fight over.
Step 2: Fifteen days from discharge
Condition (1) sets the short deadline: that the worker require the employer to restore them “within the term of fifteen (15) days, counted from the date the worker was discharged or was authorised to work with a right to treatment”. Note the two situations that start the clock: discharge, and also the authorisation to work with a right to treatment, which is the position of someone going back to work while still under treatment. Either one starts the fifteen days.
Step 3: The outer limit: twelve months, or six
The same condition sets a second, longer clock, and it is the one almost nobody mentions: the requirement is no good “after twelve (12) months have run from the date of the accident, or six (6) months for employers with fifteen (15) employees or fewer on the date of the accident”. Two different periods depending on the employer’s size, and both run from the accident, not from the discharge. If your employer had fifteen employees or fewer on the day of the accident, your window is half as long.
Step 4: Being fit for the job
Condition (2) is short: “that the worker be mentally and physically fit to hold that job at the moment they ask the employer to restore them”. The moment that matters is the request, not the accident or the medical discharge. And it is about the specific job you held, not about work in general.
Step 5: That the job subsists, and what that means
Condition (3) looks like the easiest to lose and the Act defines it in the worker’s favour. “That the job subsists at the moment the worker asks to be restored. (The job shall be understood to subsist when it is vacant or occupied by another worker.)” That is: putting someone else in your post does not make the post stop subsisting. It subsists all the same. What would break the condition is the post having genuinely been eliminated.
Step 6: The thirty-day presumption
And the Act adds a presumption worth knowing how to invoke: “The job shall be presumed to have been vacant when it was filled by another worker within the thirty days following the date the reinstatement requirement was made.” That is: if you asked to be restored and thirty days later they hired someone for that post, the Act presumes the post was vacant when you asked. Which is why it is worth having written proof of the exact date you made the requirement.
Step 7: If the employer does not comply: the wages
Here is the half of the article that is almost never quoted. “If the employer does not comply with the provisions of this article, they shall be obliged to pay the worker or their beneficiaries the wages that worker would have earned had they been reinstated.” Not an administrative fine, not a token indemnity: the wages you would have earned had they restored you.
Step 8: And damages on top
The same sentence continues: “and shall also be liable to them for all damages caused”. The wages and the damages are two separate items and the Act stacks them. The phrase “or their beneficiaries” that appears earlier matters too: if the worker dies, the right does not die with them.
Step 9: Where you claim: two routes
The article closes by giving the route, and it gives two. “The worker, or their beneficiaries, may bring and pursue the corresponding reinstatement and/or damages claim in court by ordinary action or through the wage-claim procedure established in Act No. 2 of 17 October 1961.” That is: an ordinary lawsuit, or the summary wage-claim procedure. We did not read Act 2 of 1961, so we name it as the text names it and do not describe how that procedure runs. Note the claim goes to court, not to the Fund or the Industrial Commission.
Step 10: How this works in practice
Three things follow from the text and are worth keeping in mind from the day of discharge. One: the reinstatement requirement is yours to make, because the Act sets it as a condition, not a formality. Two: the date you make it triggers the thirty-day presumption, so it is worth its being a provable date. Three: the two clocks run from different points — the fifteen days from discharge or the authorisation to work, and the twelve or six months from the accident — so you have to watch both, not one.
Where to do it
The reinstatement requirement is made to the employer, not to the Fund or the Industrial Commission. And the claim for non-compliance goes to court: Article 5-A itself says the worker or their beneficiaries may bring the reinstatement and damages claim “in court by ordinary action or through the wage-claim procedure established in Act No. 2 of 17 October 1961”. The Act publishes no forms or addresses in this article, and we read none here, so we do not invent them.
How long it takes
What to do if something goes wrong
Two sources, two deadlines, and why we publish both. Our job-reservation guide is built from the CFSE’s own pages and publishes what those pages publish: a three-hundred-and-sixty-day reservation term and four conditions. This guide reads the statute the CFSE names, and the statute says something different about the outer limit: the requirement is no good after twelve months from the date of the accident, or six months if the employer had fifteen employees or fewer on that date. We do not say either is wrong: one is what the agency publishes and the other is what the Act prints, and both are cited so you can take them to whoever decides your case. What both sources do agree on is the fifteen days from discharge, which is what sinks most cases. What we did not read and therefore do not publish: Act No. 2 of 17 October 1961, the summary wage-claim procedure the article points at — we name it as the text names it and do not describe how it runs; the CFSE’s forms and internal practice, which are in the job-reservation guide; and the rest of Act 45-1935. Cost shows as free because this is a right, not a transaction with fees. Processing time goes unverified: the fifteen-day, thirty-day, six-month and twelve-month terms are published in the steps, but no agency decides here and there is no term to state.
Common mistakes
- Waiting for the employer to call you: the Act sets it as a condition that you be the one to require reinstatement.
- Letting the fifteen days from discharge or from the authorisation to work with a right to treatment pass.
- Watching only the fifteen days: there is a second clock of twelve months from the accident, or six if the employer had fifteen employees or fewer.
- Not knowing the period halves for small employers: fifteen employees or fewer on the accident date means six months, not twelve.
- Counting the twelve or six months from discharge: they run from the date of the accident.
- Giving up because someone else was put in your post: the Act says the job subsists all the same when another worker occupies it.
- Not keeping written proof of the date of the requirement: the thirty-day presumption depends on that date.
- Asking to be restored when you are not yet fit for the job: the condition is measured at the moment of the request.
- Believing the remedy is a fine: the Act requires the employer to pay the wages you would have earned, plus all damages.
- Taking the claim to the Fund or the Industrial Commission: the article sends it to court, by ordinary action or through the Act 2 of 1961 procedure.
Frequently asked questions
How long must my employer hold my job?
Article 5-A does not fix a number of reservation days: it fixes until when you may ask to be restored. The requirement is no good after twelve months from the date of the accident, or six months if the employer had fifteen employees or fewer on that date. The CFSE, on its own pages, publishes a reservation term of three hundred and sixty days; we cover that in the job-reservation guide. We publish both figures attributed to their source.
From when do the fifteen days count?
From the date you were discharged, or from the date you were authorised to work with a right to treatment. Either situation opens the period.
My employer has few employees. Does anything change?
Yes, by half. If the employer had fifteen employees or fewer on the date of the accident, the reinstatement requirement may not be made after six months from the accident, instead of the general rule’s twelve months.
They gave my post to someone else. Have I lost the right?
Not for that reason. The Act expressly says “the job shall be understood to subsist when it is vacant or occupied by another worker”. And it adds a presumption in your favour: the job is presumed to have been vacant if it was filled with someone else within the thirty days following your reinstatement requirement.
What does the employer owe me if they do not restore me?
The wages you would have earned had you been reinstated, and they are also liable for all damages caused to you. They are two separate items and the Act stacks them.
Where do I claim?
In court. The article allows two routes: an ordinary action, or the wage-claim procedure established in Act No. 2 of 17 October 1961. We did not read that Act, so we do not describe how that procedure runs.
The worker died. Is the claim over?
No. The article says the employer must pay the wages “to the worker or to their beneficiaries”, and that “the worker, or their beneficiaries” may bring and pursue the claim.
Official sources
These are the government pages this guide is based on.
- Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado (CFSE)
Fondo del Seguro del Estado
bvirtualogp.pr.gov
Last verified
September 1, 2026
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Your employer must hold your job while you are on workers’ compensation
The Article 5A job reservation: the 360 days, the four conditions, and the 15 days after discharge.
What to do if you are injured at work in Puerto Rico
The CFSE-373 form, the five days to file with the Fondo, and what to do if your employer will not fill it out.
The Fund’s dietas under the statute
The statute sets 66⅔% of the wage, never more than two hundred nor less than sixty dollars weekly, and up to three hundred and sixty-four weeks.
How to appeal a Fondo decision to the Industrial Commission
The 30 days, what can be appealed, and why the appeal is not filed with the CFSE.
Unjust dismissal: how severance pay is calculated
Three months of salary plus two weeks per full year of service, capped at nine months. One year to claim from the dismissal date.
The Fund’s compensation schedule
Each limb has a number of weeks in the statute: 300 for an arm, 200 for hearing, 15 for a toe. The absolute cap is twelve thousand dollars.