Pirates and Workers’ Compensation

Being a pirate is a hazardous occupation with extreme weather, hand-to-hand combat, sea voyages, injuries from falls, heavy lifting, and long hours. In the 1700s, Captain Morgan created a workers’ compensation system in the pirate code which allows for “recompense and reward each one ought to have that is either wounded or maimed in his body, suffering the loss of any limb, by that voyage.”

Other sources provide a historical payment made to injured pirates including:

• Loss of an eye – 100 pieces of eight (Spanish dollar)
• Loss of a finger – 100 pieces of eight
• Loss of left arm – 500 pieces of eight
• Loss of right arm – 600 pieces of eight
• Loss of left leg – 400 pieces of eight
• Loss of right leg – 500 pieces of eight

Modern workers’ compensation schemes do not differentiate between the right and left appendages. Both are valued the same with no extra compensation for losing a dominant limb.

Insurance companies are worse than pirates. They have billions of dollars of premiums and executives that make millions of dollars. Utah Injury Law Center is happy to plunder insurance companies for injured workers.